Kathak is a classical Indian dance form from the northern part of India. Kathak comes from the word ‘Katha’ which means story, the one who tells the story is the Kathak. Kathak is an amalgamation of three performing arts: music, dance, and drama.

The evolution of Kathak started as a folk dance, Kathak dancers traveled through villages trying to express to others what they had seen through expressions, movements, and instruments that they carried in their bags. Kathak shifted towards a mythological narrative when the pandits started inviting these storytellers to narrate stories in the temples and it merged stories from the Vedas, Puran, Mahabharata, and Ramayana. After the Mughals came, these storytellers got invited into the Mughal courts, and once again, the narrative of Kathak altered and became a source of entertainment, fashion, value, and technique. 

All the progress of Kathak got flushed away when the British invaders banned these dancers, they lost their income, and many got forced into prostitution. The heritage, thought, style, and evolutionary process of Kathak had become threatened. These storytellers started teaching their family members Kathak because they got prohibited from the public, and that’s how Kathak got classified. The gharanas, the three categorizations of kathak, come from three different northern Indian territories which include Jaipur, Lucknow, and Banaras. All three Kathak forms have their element of style and narration. After independence in India, Kathak flourished all over.