Not as easy as it seems!
I always thought Garba and Dandiya is all about clapping and swaying your body in a particular direction but it’s only when I took a demo-class of Garba by ‘Garba in the city’ I realized DUDE! IT’S NOT THAT EASY! Being a dance enthusiast, I grabbed a wonderful opportunity to be a part of two days workshop organized by Richa Kala and Nritya Society (the organizer of ‘Garba in the city’) at ‘Natya Ballet Centre’, Connaught Place, New Delhi.
The moment I entered, I saw a studio exactly like you must have seen in any dance reality show. I was awed by huge mirrors all around, their wooden floors and professional garba dancers who were all set to make us groove to their beats. It was a pleasure to dance under the guidance of the well-known art director, Bharat S. Rajawat who was also the choreographer of the famous performers like Dharmesh Sir and Prince of the ‘Dance India Dance’ fame.
Overall, the experience was amazing (yes, I did take few selfies!) but one hour was not enough to fulfill my appetite for dance. No doubt, my feet were hurting and calves were stiff but the experience was worth the pain.
After all the fun, the journalist in me woke up (who just slept for an hour when I was dancing.) and I caught Richa Gupta, a well known Kathak Dancer and owner of the institute in a conversation to know more about ‘Garba in the city’:
What is your expectation from the audience when you are on stage?
For every dancer, a stage is a temple wherein the moment you are there, all the negativity that is within you sponges down the drain. And, when you are on stage you want nothing but everyone’s eyes on you.
It takes hell lot of hard work and practice to be a dancer and it’s certainly not easy. We put in our blood, sweat, in fact everything in every piece we perform, so that is why we want your attention. On the other hand, I feel it is solely your input in your dance that would set you apart from the other dancers. Yes, our Guru guides us but it is on us as to how we own that performance.
Tell us something about ‘Garba in the city’.
‘Garba in the city’ is the buzz of the town now. Our society, ‘Richa Nritya and Kala Society’ has always promoted arts and culture and this is our venture to promote different forms of folk dance.
This is our third year and we conduct a month-long workshop thrice in a year focusing on different forms of folk dance. Earlier, we have experimented with Bihu, Rajasthani Folk and now we have brought Garba to Delhi.
This time our aim is to make it big because everyone knew what garba is but we had to reach out to the masses. People think this form of dance is attempted either by people who are expert or people of basic level and the one who stands in the middle has nothing to do with it. For them, their life is all about waking up in the morning, eat food, go to office and come back. That’s it!
So, with this ‘Garba in the city’ event we are trying to motivate people to dedicate one hour of their daily routine for themselves. This one hour would ultimately bring a miracle in their life.
Who trains the participants and what is the objective behind this initiative?
We bring the artists right from the place where the folk dance is practiced. They assist us in teaching people here.
Our objective is to have loads of fun and to take people who were once a part of the audience, to the stage. A platform to perform is what everyone is fighting for these days; especially when you are between the age of 50 and 60, the possibility of getting a platform gets even more impossible, so my goal is to take everyone who is joining their hands with me in this venture, to the stage.
Are these two days demo-classes sort of auditions?
No way! Come on! I think everyone can dance. I don’t want to create dancers here, I want to create dance in people. I like people who have two left feet and they dance.
Koshish-2011, what was it about?
As the name suggests, it’s all about an effort to make people dance. It was an effort to take people on stage and face the world. It gives all together a different level of confidence to them. People who are with us since ‘Koshish’ started, I have seen their personality changing in a big way.
How has been the response in three years?
Response has been amazing. I have always noticed that people who declare themselves as non-dancers are as good as good dancers on the 30th day of the workshop. That is the beauty of our workshop. Plus I don’t charge bonkers, I charge 100rs for each class which is nothing in today’s world. You are paying for an hour of joy that we give you. Classes would happen every day for one hour.
If you can’t take out an hour for yourself in your regime then your life is no fun! It’s all about priority and without money, nothing works. Dance is a feeling you will know when you join it.
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