Tribhanga

Tribhaṅga or Tribunga is a standing body position or stance used in traditional Indian art and Indian classical dance forms like the Odissi, where the body bends in one direction at the knees, the other direction at the hips and then the other again at the shoulders and neck.^[1][2]

The pose goes back at least 2,000 years in Indian art, and has been highly characteristic for much of this period, "found repeated over and over again in countless examples of Indian sculpture and painting".^[3] Indian religions carried it to East and South-East Asia. Like the equivalent contrapposto and "S Curve" poses in Western art, it suggests movement in figures and gives "rhythmic fluidity and ... youthful energy".^[4]

The word derives from Sanskrit, where bhanga (or bhangha) is the word for an attitude or position, with tri meaning "triple", making "triple-bend position". Other poses described in old texts on dance were samabhanga for the "figure in equipoise", whether standing, sitting or reclining, and abhanga for a slight bend in one leg giving a smaller curve to the figure. Other more complex positions in dance are atibhanga;^[5] the famous Shiva Nataraja figures are examples of this.^[6]