This past Saturday at the Yoga Farm, following the evening meditation and daily chants, there was a Bharatnatyam dance performance by Anuradha Prabhashankar. I've seen her performances many times since she performs at the Yoga Farm several times a year.
A Bharatnatyam dance typically tells a story of devotion to God, often a conversation or a complaint, and is considered a form of Bhakti Yoga. I find her performances very educational because, before each dance, she explains the story that will be told by that dance along with an explanation of each of the gestures (of arms, hands, face, etc.) that will be used during the dance.
Because one of the dances was about a story that involved the mention of child marriage, she shared an interesting bit of trivia about the origins of child marriage in India -- During medieval times, Hindu families started marrying their daughters off as soon as possible after birth to protect them from abuse by foreign invaders.
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