Rumba comes alive on stage
The last 10 years have been eventful, tough and full of ups and downs. I have been fortunate enough to successfully run my dance studio with branches all over the country. I have been celebrating International Dance Day with most of my friends who have also performed at various international dance festivals.
In fact, I took up the dance day to create awareness among people about various dances, which are popular around the world and are not so well known in India. I still remember my first Salsa, Cha-Cha and Rumba performances. After a few years, I introduced dances like the Paso Doble, Quickstep, Bachata and Merengue. But doing the same routine dance steps over the years made me feel stagnated in many ways as a teacher and a choreographer. Even as a performer I felt the need to do more.
I decided to do something different on this dance day that just passed by. I planned a show, inspired by the legendary danseuse Sonal Mansingh. I wanted to do a show, which would not only entertain the audience, but also even educate them. So I thought of a concept on the lines of story telling and decided to make Born to Samba. It was a theatrical show on the evolution of the Samba. The narrative is brilliant and works well. Samba as a dance is personified, takes a human form and talks about his life right from his birth. I thought it would be fabulous to show the growth of one of the world’s most famous dance form, Brazilian Samba.
Our first theatrical show based on Brazilian Samba received great round of applause from everyone. Even famous Bollywood choreographer Saroj Khan loved the performance and expressed her desire to learn some steps of Samba. After the show, I did teach her a few steps and boy, she is justified as the guru of all Bollywood choreographers.
I can proudly say that our show had all the elements to make the dance form more interesting and eye-catchy. It also had drama, was high on emotions and live Brazilian music too. The show was just an hour twenty minutes long, but ‘the evolution and history of Samba was fun and entertaining. It was overwhelming to receive an encouraging response from the audience wherever we performed across cities like Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Indore and Guwahati. Most of the appreciation is reserved for Sonal Mansingh who inspired the sleeping dancer within me.
From bringing the stage alive with many entertaining acts and having the gorgeous Carmen Miranada perform at the show, this dance day was one of the most satisfying and memorable one.
Post new comment