WordPress stats overstates the hits by 30% or so (it counts whenever your pages appear on the search results page of Google even if people don’t click on the link to your page!).
If you want to get real statistics, register an invisible counter on statcounter.com (they have a special one for WordPress blogs), then insert it in your posts.
Sangeetha :Thanks for the info about statcounter.com.

Sangeetha: I am aware of your attitude about dance being used as a therapy. But therapeutic role of dance is here to stay. One shouldn’t attend if it affects their sensibilities. There is absolutely no compulsion or competition.

By the way, 25 respondents out of the 2.5 million (my estimate) represents nothing. If you blog has already 147,491 hits, why not keep this survey for a while longer?
Sangeetha: 25 I agree is a little too less statistically speaking. And as I have said earlier, more than the actual numerical data and the differeces among groups it is their extended responses with respect to the qualities expected out of a dance musician, how carnatic music helps a dancer and what’s their attitude with CD as accompaniment that are interesting and thought provoking. A few have even gone on to speculate about why professional musicians dont accompany dancers. I will get all these compiled hopefully in a day or two. So that being my point of interest, I already find a pattern emerging and there is a strong similarity in the general ideas expressed .
WordPress stats shows around 250 hits per days. I am not sure about how it calculates this, and I am not sure about how many of these are unique visitors. I have absolutely no conatct with that many of readers.The response rate to emails was around 65%. Well you seem to be the most ardent follower of the blog. But I knew for a fact that your input would surface as comments.
But if you are interested you can take it up from here. I can transfer the files to you.

Sangeetha: I agree that an appreciation of music could definitely be advantageous for serious students of dance. It is definitely sad when dance and music are looked at as mutually exclusive sets.For a rasika an appreciation of both is a boon. Those who grew up with music and dance all around should thank our stars. But developing an appreciation can be a learned process too
As for the results the survey, from what I have compiled so far, it seems that dancers are indeed aware that they need to develop a good ear! I find this very positive!

Moreover….

Found on http://www.kutcheribuzz.com/features/interviews/vempatti.asp :

Is it mandatory to sing in ‘6′ shruthi for your music?

In dance-dramas we need male and female singers. They can combine only in ‘6′ shruthi. For solo performances, 5 or 5 – 1/2 shruthi is fine.

Have you tried training vocalists to sing according to your requirement?

We did. The sad part is that after training for almost a year, they just leave. And they sing for other dancers. Besides, the musicians’ fees are so high these days. And we are very particular about the way the music is performed. Even the accompanying instrumental music has set patterns. One cannot just follow the vocalist or play anything. That is why most of the accompanists find it difficult to play here. But we want to retain the music as it was composed. Because my father has done the choreography according to the mood of the music. So, if we change the music pattern, the beauty of the dance choreography will be lost. Today we find very few artistes, mostly seniors, who do not compromise on the music. Many others leave it to the orchestra to perform what they wish.

Do you use recorded music for performances?

Never. The problems that dancers face with musicians has led to the use of recorded music. But there is no life when you use recorded music for a performance. It will lack the emotion that you find in a live orchestra. Only when there is an interaction between the musicians and the dancer, will the performance be alive and create the rasa.

Hi Ashwini,
Well that was quick! Thanks for the additional info. It will be intersting to see the results (once I compile them) in light of these statements.
Regards,
Sangeetha

On behalf of our dance teacher this is to inform you that we have a dance troup called Bhramara School of Dance and Music & Our Guru is Smt Vandya Shrinath.
We are glad to inform you that we are intrested to perform a dance in your organization. So, Please let us know the details of that.

Kindly find the below website for the Bio-data of our Guru Smt Vandya Shrinath.

http://www.srinathvasistha.in/profilepages/vandya.

Thanks & regards,

Rashmi D. S.

I think the categories of people you describe cover only 50% of the total. Before people (especially those outside South India) become “serious investigators” or serious Bharatanatyam students, their initial interest is developing slowly, it’s like a little baby growing: the initial food intake will largely determine how the baby will grow in the future and what food it will prefer. So if you feed this baby some GM dried milk, Coca-Cola or hamburgers, the baby may fall ill and die. Babies are very vulnerable. They catch infections. The ………….. production is like exhaust fumes, or swine flu!

My point is, let’s make it widely known for all babies that the GM baby food, Coca-Cola and hamburgers are unsafe for them, and exhaust fumes are poisonous!

Pollution does not happen on the material level alone: there is pollution on the aesthetic, mental and spiritual levels too!

Let’s clean ……. of garbage!

The effect is this: once one sees a boring contemporary …. dance labelled as Bharathanatyam, he will think, “Oh, now I know what is Bharathanatyam, that’s that idiotic dance. I am not going to watch Bharathanatyam anymore!”. Do you see the danger? We should protect our “brand name”, don’t we?

Sangeetha: I agree that indiscriminate labelling of everything under the sun as “Bharathanatyam” is dangerous.The informed rasika knows what BN is and knows when it is a misnomer.So I presume you are concerned about the new ones. The “new” audience can be of different types:-
1.Family and friends of new learners who usually attend a class program. Well they feel they are a part of it and dont really worry. They are there because they want to. If they are serious with time they learn to differentiate between what is bad and good and change loyalties.
2.In some places outside India and for a few Indians themselves, bindi, chutti and a namaste and atami go to make an “Indian dance”. I dont really know how/why to worry about this group, because their interest itself may be fleeting.Their attraction may be for anything termed “traditional/exotic” and their interest in the dance costume at most times exceeds their interest in the performance as such. For them yoga/reflexology/massage and spa belong to the same category.They usually attend “free” exhibition showcase programs. But I also realize there is scope for some of their initial fleeting infatuation to turn into serious appreciation if they liked what they saw. And what is wonderful is very subjective! In a way, anyone who dons the costumes and stands out there making some moves becomes an ambassador of the art to this market.
3. The serious investigator who chooses attend a good performance guided by research.Well if they are destined and equipped with sensibilities to find the real good one, they eventually will meander their way through the multitude of publicity materialstrong>

As for the picture, I thought Smitha Madhav would be only happy and proud if I use her photo!!!!!!!!! What photo do you want me to use?
Sangeetha: I would want you to use yours. Why hide your pretty strong convictions and beliefs behind Smitha Madhav’s facade, unless you are really her? You are rude and get carried off a little bit, but if you did what you did nicely you wouldnt need to maintain this pretense at all. Infact people may want to be mentored by you

Hi!
I can see 2 aspects to your comment.
1. Canada claiming this BN performance as ““the most important Canadian dance production of 2001”
2. if this production itself fits into your classification of what shd be BN.

And what’s with this using Smitha Madhav’s picture on your twitter? Won’t she be angry?

Hi!
Long time no see!
So you wanted to quote from write up was inspired by Lalitha Venkat’s report on Leela vankatraman writing workshop as reported in Narthaki too? You could have linked the quote in your blog to Narthaki but you opted to link to this modest blog. I am Ok with you sending in a few readers to this site anyway
And I came accross this- “How can a chronically depressed dancer, like Michael Jackson, transmit any joy and bliss to the rasikas?”. Now, I thought you restricted yourself to “critically examining” the personalities and performances of Indian or Indian origin dancers in your own inimitable way! How wrong I was!
Regards,
Sangeetha