One of the most popular Indian folk dances is a Bharatanatyam dance. It is performed by Indian women, dressed in richly adorned costumes and bejeweled. A special hairdo is an important part of the Bharatanatyam style. Today, we’d like to show you how to make this hairdo and decorate it with traditional jewelry. It looks very pretty and elegant; the Bharatanatyam hairstyle complements the costume of a dancer really well.
Namaste. Today, I am going to show you how to make the hairdo for Bharatanatyam.
Here are the things that you require.
First, we require a circular bun – this is a ring that you can get at the market.
Next, we need a string of white flowers – these are artificial ones and very lightweight.
Then, there is a 3-liner of flowers.
Now, we get a ready-made hair, which is also very lightweight and very easy to do.
So, let's start with the hairdo. Today, we have Anusha here, who is going to help us with the hair.
First, take the hair, comb it neatly, and make a center partition. Now, the first thing we need to do is fix the rink. Take the hair on the top of the head and put it into a ponytail. Take any rubber band and make this into a ponytail.
Now, take this circular bun and put the hair inside the hole and spread the hair around. You will require a lot of black cord – take a piece and secure the hair tightly around the bun.
You will also require bun pins or U-pins to secure the rest of the hair. Let it go around the ring and put the U-pins into the hair.
Now, the bun is fixed. We need to fix an ornament in the center. This jewelry piece is called a “rakodi”. You need to tie a black cord to it. Leave some length of the cord, so that you could fix it on the bun. Take a little strand in the bun and insert the cord, and the other side, too. Take 2 ends of the cord and tie a knot. Make sure the rakodi is in the center. 1 knot up and 1 knot down should be enough. The rest of the cord is cut off.
Now, we need to put the flowers around this bun. Place the flowers around it and tie a knot. You may also put the U-pins, just to make sure the flowers stay in place.
This is the way the bun or the ring is fixed in a Bharatanatyam hairdo.
Now that we have fixed the ring on the head, we go ahead and fix the rest of the hair. Let's see how it is done.
If the hair is very short, just make a ponytail at the nape, tie it with a rubber band, and leave it. If the hair is longer and it can come into a braid, please, do braid it. The hair is ready and we have put a rubber band on the end.
Let's take the artificial hair, ready-made hair, and tie the strings (also black cord) around the braid. The artificial hair has hooks, which you need to place into the braid to hold it in place. This artificial hair comes with these strings already – you can tie them to the original hair. You can also take some more black cord and tie it to the rest of the hair.
Now that the hair is done, we have to attach the flowers at the nape of the head. You will require hair pins called “bobby pins”.
The hairdo is done.
Now that we are done with the hair, we are going to attach the rest of the ornaments.
First, the single chutti. Please, put a black cord to the hook of this single chutti. Then, you place it on the forehead, put the black cord around the whole bun, and tie it. You need to put a few hairpins here to secure the jewels.
The next ornament is called the “Surya Chandra”. This can go on top of the chutti. You need to tie the black cord to it, place it on the head, take the cord all the way down, and tie it underneath the hair. Then, secure the Surya Chandra with bobby pins.
This is done. The rest is gimmiki and mattal – the jewelry pieces for the ears.
One last thing. As the chutti is going to be very loose while dancing, it is going to disturb the dancer. So, please, take a black cord and tie the adornment to the head at the nape.
So, that's the way you do your hairdo for the Bharatanatyam dance.
(c)
