Kathak is the major classical dance style of North India (figure 1). Derived from the Sanskrit word kathā ‘story
’, the dance was born in the temple, where it gradually developed as a pantomime to accompany the recitation of professional storytellers (kathakkaṛ). These wandering minstrels traveled the countryside captivating audiences with their tales of valor, love, and the divine, as their descendants do today.
The bhakti or devotional cult that flourished during the Hindu Renaissance of the fifteenth...