Bharatanatyam Dance

Abstract

This article explores an Asian Indian American youth’s Bharatnatyam dance literacy education in a major city in the southwest of the U.S. I draw from sociocultural, multimodal, transmediation, and multiple intelligencies theories to support my claims. Findings reveal the young adult’s dance education contributed to cultural preservation (Iyengar & Smith, 2016). A plethora of research on the contributions of dance education in the physical development of children is available. This study offers understandings of how formal classical dance (Bharatanatyam) is both beneficial physically and psychologically. Dance, especially Bharatanatyam, culturally codified and schematized contributes to literacy learning in school.