"...visually pleasing, informative, and entertaining. Recommended."
Video Librarian (J. Reed)
"The footwork is fast and the costumes, beautiful...."
Multicultural Review
".... Wow! What a wonderful presentation of the music, dance and culture....excellent work."
Greg and Gabriela McVicar (Walnut Creek, CA)

The ancient classical music and dance of southern India, called "bharatanatyam," is based on the Natya Shastra, a 2,000 year old text. "Bharatanatyam" is the focus of our documentary "Of Beauty & Deities: Music & Dance of India." We've rounded out its performance with interviews, photographs, and one folk dance from Orissa (in central India).

Since the documentary originally aired over several PBS stations which have very strict rules as to length, we had to shorten two of the performance numbers. We have provided the complete versions of both of them here for you to enjoy, along with the documentary.

The solo dancer, K.P. Yeshoda, and the musicians are from India. The group performers come from a San Francisco Bay Area performance group called Kalanjali: Dances of India whose artistic directors, K.P. and Katherine Kunhiraman, were both trained at the Kalakshetra Institute in Chennai, India. (K.P. Kunhiraman also taught there.) Most of the group dancers are from the Indian diaspora.