Are these Bharatanatyam dancers robots? Here’s the truth

Hyderabad: A video of two Bharatanatyam dancers performing is being widely shared on social media with misleading claims.

In the five-minute video, we can see two graceful dancers performing. However, netizens doubt if they are even real.

A Facebook user who shared the video claimed they were “robots” and wrote, “Watch this dance carefully. Dancing at Disneyland in Shanghai*. *These two are not human dancers, *But two robots made in China**. *The duration of the dance is only five minutes. But the waiting time to buy tickets to see this dance is 4 hours. Tickets to see this dance cost 499 yuan, which is equivalent to 75 dollars*. *Robots’ facial expressions are so perfect that it’s hard to distinguish them from real people.*. find it tough believing this. Worth seeing even it is fake!! (sic)”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim to be false.

On performing a reverse image search, we found the extended version of the viral video on the YouTube channel Indian Raga. It is titled “Vahana Alarippu: Bharatanatyam Dance | Best of Indian Classical Dance” and was uploaded on 11 August 2017.

The video description also lists the names of the entire team, from the choreographer to the dancers. It reads, “Vahana Alarippu in ragamalika depicting Muruga, Vishnu, Shiva and Devi with their vahanas

Performed by

Sophia Salingaros (Choreographer, Dancer)

Isha Parupudi (Dancer)

Vivek Ramanan (Vocal, Mridangam),

Akash Gururaja (Violin)

Agastya Sridharan (Flute)”

From this, it is evident that the performers seen in the viral video are neither robots nor are they performing at Disneyland, Shanghai. Hence, the claim is false.