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For my sister, who juggles rigorous contemporary dance training with assignment deadlines and long commutes, coming to terms with the unfortunate reality that dance in India is still not an entirely viable career option has been hard. Do it for as long as your body allows you, part-time and supported by an alternate, steady stream of income - this is the mantra a lot of dancers in the country have had to follow. Moreover, even as traditional Indian dance classes saw young boys and girls come in after school (a bid to boost the repertoire of extracurricular activities they were already trying their hands at), exposure to forms like hip-hop, contemporary, jazz and classical ballet was limited.
Luckily, for India’s more rebellious dancers, things are changing. Mumbai’s Future School of Performing Arts will host the country’s first ever Ballet Festival of India (BFI) this November. When ballet dancer and teacher Ashifa Sarkar Vasi walked into dancer and entrepreneur Karene Lawyer’s dancewear store in Mumbai, they did not know that the chance meeting would be the beginning of six months’ of hard work to make the festival a reality. Both Ashifa and Karene are trained classical ballet dancers and have spent long years in the United States of America, perfecting their craft. Training with American companies like the School of American Ballet, the Rock School of Dance Education and Mount Holyoke College was eye-opening for the pair - especially Karene, who’d actually begun her training in Mumbai. If the same level of training and opportunity was given to dancers in India, who knows how high their split jumps could take them?
The three-day festival is open to pre-professional dancers with at least a year or two of experience. Modelled along the lines of festivals that Ashifa attended in the States, the BFI will host renowned local and international faculty, to mentor the participants over a collective 24+ hours, including Cindy Jourdain, former Principal dancer with the Royal Ballet (London) and Tushna Dallas who founded the School of Classical Ballet & Western Dance in Mumbai over 50 years ago. For dancers looking to turn pro, this is also a fantastic opportunity to network, put out some feelers and get a sense of the job opportunities in India and abroad. The curtain will go down on the festival with a stunning studio performance (there’s limited seats for this) and, hopefully, a new direction for many dance dreams.
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