Kathak is a dance form associated with north India. The kathaks were originally a caste of story-tellers in temples of north India, who embellished their performances with gestures and songs. Kathak began evolving into a distinct mode of dance in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with the spread of the bhakti movement. The legends of Radha - Krishna were enacted in folk plays called Rasa Lila, which combined folk dance with the basic gestures of the kathak story-tellers.