Gratitude and Dance

By Piyali Somaia On April 17th, 2016

A beautiful thing about dance is the ability that a dancer has to shed all that is going on in his/her life and just dance, focus on enjoying the moment and expressing themselves freely. As an Indian classical (bharatanatyam) dancer, I believe the magic lies in giving this traditional art form a personal touch. The way you look with your eyes, the tilt of your chin or the spring in your leaps. This is a special gift, to dance and to make it your own.

Growing up in Melbourne into a musical family with Indian heritage, one thing was for sure; you went to dance class on a Saturday morning – rain, hail or shine. The choice of dance was Bharatanatyam, one of the most ancient (and popular) forms of dance originating in India. Most of Sapphire Dance’s routines feature elements of this dance form.

When thinking of ideas for this piece of writing, the first thing that sprung into my mind was gratitude and it seems a fitting way to start my first contribution. Above all, I am thankful for having dance in my life and this is why…

Firstly, bharatanatyam gave me the ability to be curious about feelings, expressing myself though “abhinaya” (facial expressions and gestures). One routine could involve a multitude of emotions such as being a jealous lover, evil like a demon, innocent like a child and loving like a mother.

It also helped me learn resilience. As a young dancer you are taught to accept your weaknesses, openly in front of your peers, and work towards changing them.

Teamwork was a given, because many times (ok, most of the time) you didn’t practice quite enough before a class and relied on a fellow dancer to talk you through the entire dance sequence with hand gestures and hushed tones at the back of class before you went on. Over the years we bonded over annual student concerts, extreme eye make-up and ridiculously bright red lipstick, supporting each other through tough injuries and early morning rehearsals (how did we do it without coffee?).

Most of all, dance taught me about accepting myself and therefore connecting to others . To shed my fears, understand my feelings, strengths and weaknesses, how to commit to goals and about patience and practice. Life-long lessons which I continue to work on today. For these offerings there are no words. Just thanks, to my guru for teaching me the art form, my mum for introducing dance into my life and to all my fellow dancers. Today I feel so lucky to be able to spend every week with the brilliant sapphire dance team and share our passion with the wider community through our performances. That’s a lot to be thankful for.

Piyali Somaia is a dancer, co-founder of Sapphire Dance and completed her arangetram from Nrithakshetra School of Indian Classical Dance under her guru, Shanty Rajendran.