The red color used in Bharatanatyam
By Miho Kataoka2007©
The god Shiva is depicted as an ascetic in the Hindu mythology. He has renounced the world. The ultimate goal of human being is to isolate oneself fromSamsara (the wheal of life) in the thought of Upanishad. But what will happen if all human renounced the world? This world would stop to functioning.
In Hindu myth, the god Vishnu (the god of Dharma, the order) make Shiva marry to Parvati. In order to maintain the world, we need not only Purusha (spirit, male) but Prakriti (nature, material, female).
The goddess Parvati who is a consort of Shiva decorated her with a lot of jewels and stained her hands and foot with henna in her wedding. Like this, at the Hindu weddings, women put henna.
At the Bharatanatyam recitals, we apply red-colored liquid called altha instead of henna. It presents that the dancer is an auspicious one who is a bride of the god. Besides that, henna cool down the heat. The color red symbolizes the passion, sexual intercourse, menstruation and birth. This is the color which symbolizes the woman. But the heat implies a destructive aspect so that it is indispensable to cool down. Therefore the bride applies henna.
Bharatanatyam dancers put on gold jewels. When I just started performing, I used to wonder why we need to put so many showy jewels. As we see a lot of gold shop in India
