The Spirit of Yoga
Laura Massa writes: India is one of the cradles of world civilization and center
of ancient spiritual knowledge. It is my belief that learning should always provide
a first-hand experience. In an effort to introduce an empirical approach into the
classroom I invited dance Professor Harija Sivakumar from India, and Valerie DeWitt,
an American yoga instructor and mother of one of our ninth graders. Both classes
provided a vivid exposure to different aspects of Indian culture.
Professor Sivakumar performed and explained the main steps of Bharathanatyam, a
classical Indian dance that is extremely popular in southern India as well as in
Sri Lanka. This sacred dance reveals the spiritual through the corporeal, and traces
its origin in the times of the Vedas, the scriptural texts of the Hindus and the
foundation of its religion and philosophy. The complexity of the dance is based
on the coordination of feet, legs, arms, hands, eyes, and head movements; everything
performed within a precise musical rhythm.