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Theatre and dance in South Asia stem principally from Indian tradition. The principles of aesthetics and gesture language in the Natya-shastra, a 2,000-year-old Sanskrit treatise on dramaturgy, have been the mainstay of all the traditional dancers and actors in India. Even folk performers follow some of its conventions; e.g., the Kandyan dancers of Sri Lanka preserve some of the whirls and spins described in this ancient Indian text. Despite the influence of the different religious waves that swept the subcontinent through the centuries, the forms of South Asian dance and theatre were always able to preserve their ancient core. Traditionally, ...(100 of 82044 words)