Music -Indian Hasthas

The children have been listening to different types of music and had to improvise movements to each piece of music- could they guess which animal matched each piece of music? Can you? Which animal- fish, bird?

The children had to listen to the rhythm and dynamics of the music.

During the last few weeks the children have been exploring descriptive sounds based around an animal theme in their music lessons. This week they have been watching some traditional Indian dance movements for different animals.

Hasthas are traditional Indian hand gestures. They are closely linked to the telling of traditional stories. This tradition of telling stories with music and movement goes back hundreds of years.

Can you guess which animals the children
are imitating? The children have been encouraged to let their hands take on the personality and mood of the different animals.

Video clips were shown to the class to help them improve their techniques.

James is pretending to be a deer and Lauren is the demonstrating the shape used for bees.







Raja abhogi is the name of the music the children listened to. They were asked to think about which of the animals studied they could most easily imagine moving in time to the music.

The children improvise moving their hands as their chosen animal in time to the music. The use of facial expressions is an important part of the dance.