Learning the Dhrupad

We've been trying to learn the Dhrupad for almost a month now. I can safely say that this is the longest time we've taken to learn any one piece, except the varnam!

I know that Dhrupad is a form of hindustani classical music, which has been successful in retaining its original form all along and is sung in sanskrit.

Been trying to figure out if this is the same dhrupad we refer to in dance. It's quite difficult to do that, since not many people have choreographed a dhrupad..but will keep at it!The only similarity I see till now is that both are in sanskrit!!

Before we started out, we were under the impression that the dhrupad mostly involves chaaris like mathhalli. Little did we know that it would turn out to be such a heavy piece. And to think we thought nee nee jatheeshwaram and shankara sri giri were difficult.