In contrast to Kṛṣṇa's liquid grace, Śiva's dance is vigorous and forceful. Śiva in his form of Naṭarāja, the Cosmic Dancer, symbolizes the rhythmic dance of creation and destruction that all energy in our Universe undergoes. 

The iconic image of Śiva Naṭarāja shown to the right was developed in the South Indian Chola Dynasty, which ruled from the 9th to the 13th cent. In her book Kathak: The Dance of Storytellers, Rachna Ramya explains the symbolism of the Naṭarāja statue: 

'The statue of Naṭarāja rests on a lotus pedestal, symbolizing an awakening of consciousness. The ring of fire that surrounds Him connotes the manifest universe, an endless cycle of birth and death. The dancing Śiva is stepping with His right leg on Apasmāra Puruṣa, who is a personification of illusion and ignorance, and His raised left leg symbolizes the triumph over materialistic bondages. [His four hands represent the four cardinal directions.] His upper right hand holds a ḍamaru, an hourglass-shaped drum of creation on which He plays the rhythm of the universe. Śiva's ḍamaru has two distinct heads, which are perceived as soul and body. [...] As Śiva's dance reaches a crescendo, the two separate aspects of ḍamaru start to merge, forming a shape resembling a star of illumination.' 

'Śiva's upper left hand holds agni, the fire of dissolution of form: "The balance of the two hands represents the dynamic balance of creation and destruction in the world, accentuated further by the Dancer's calm and detached face in the centre of the two hands, in which the polarity of creation and destruction is dissolved and transcended" (Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, p. 244).'

-Rachna Ramya, Kathak: The Dance of Storytellers, p. 16