History of Kathak Dance

Series Summary

Kathak dance is the national dance of Pakistan and originates from South Asia, specifically North India. Typically, Kathak dances tell stories and mythological narratives about ancient bards, temples and movements, and the word Kathak comes from the Sanskrit for the word story. Generally, Kathak dance is very expressive, using sharp hand movements interspersed with smooth circular movements. There are several types of Kathak dance but all of them tell a story or express an emotion in some way.


In this free video series, our expert will teach you how to perform Kathak dances. You will get tips and instruction on hand gestures, footwork and count patterns. You will also learn how to make offering dance movements, tell stories with Kathak dance and depict weather, emotional sentiments, and facial expressions. You will get tips on sharp and circular hand movements and patterns as well as learn the importance of final poses. If you are interested in Kathak dancing or any Pakistani or Indian dance, let our expert show you everything you need to know to get started with Kathak dance.

Video Transcript

"I'm going to introduce the Kathak, North Indian classical dance which comes all the way from North India. So we have many classical styles. But this is particularly a part of the North Indian tradition. And Kathak means telling a story. It comes from ancient times. They used to dance. These dancers used to dance in the temples and show the epic stories of Ramayana and Mahabharta. These are very popular stories of India which tells the symbolic, the idea of how to discipline the life. With taking the examples of the Gods and Goddesses. So we used to tell in ancient times, these stories. But not just telling the stories but the dancers or singers, they used to sing and narrate the story with different patterns and movements of the bodily movements. This is how these dances started."