Mudras

In Indian classical dance, mudras are single hand gestures or double hand gestures, that can be meaningful or simply aesthetic. They also accompany a wider bodily expression (the body mouvements ) that will give full meaning to the dance.

One of the most striking features of Indian classical dance and dances of Thailand,Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar and is the use of hand gestures. Speaking in dance via gestures in order to convey outer events or things visually is what mudras do. To convey inner feelings, two classifications of mudras (hand/finger gesture) are used in Indian classical dance, Thai dances, Cambodian dances, Lao dances and Burmese dances, and are indeed a prominent part of the dancer’s vocabulary.

In all their forms of Indian classical dance, the mudras are similar, though the names and uses vary. There are 28 (or 32) root mudras in Bharatanatyam, 24 in Kathakali and 20 in Odissi. These root mudras are combined in different ways, like one hand, two hands, arm movements, body and facial expressions.