ng of the arts education and training programmes. The annual day event serves as an opportunity for students to get the experience of performing quite early in their training. It also gives parents a chance to see what their children are learning. Sunday’s event was momentous because it gave me an opportunity to talk about some of the new changes we are bringing into the academy as well as thank all the staff and teachers who have graciously accepted me in this new role and been open to all the structural changes we are bringing about.
Tell us about the significant changes you are making.
One of the most significant changes we have made from this year on has been in the Bharatanatyam course. From this summer, we got our teachers together with Amma (Mrinalini Sarabhai) and some of her oldest students, to re-look at few defining elements of her style of Pandanallur Bharatanatyam, which has seemed to have gotten somewhat diluted over the years, a sort of generation loss in a sense. By revisiting original sources, we tried to re-codify these defining elements — specific positions of the head, arms, legs, specific movements and subtleties in them — mainly to bring back this thoroughness and distinctness in the style as it’s taught to new students. We have also tried to develop innovative ways such as story-telling, role-playing etc, to engage young students aged 7 and up in easily grasping difficult parts of their training. We have updated our evaluation system by adding a video-assisted feedback for students to be able to watch themselves on a video recording to further see and improve their posture, movements, and expressions. In addition, we have a new set of short-term courses, one to three months, in Folk dance, Kalaripayattu Martial Arts, Drama, Acting for Film & TV, as well as crafts and visual arts. I found, that there are a lot of people who are interested in arts but are afraid to commit to long term courses. These short courses serve as a means for such people to be introduced and get initial exposure, before they choose to learn at a more advanced level. We are also launching a new platform for young talented students to start performing at a professional level as part of a children’s performing group. This will serve as a fantastic opportunity for talented kids to get professional experience and serve as a motivating factor for other students too.
Darpana, five years from now...
I believe that arts have a central role to play in bettering our quality of life. My vision is to make the arts more accessible to all demographics — children, young adults, middle-aged housewives, corporate executives, even senior citizens. Whether it is a dedicated professional training to start a life-long career as a dancer or an actor; a twice-a-week class to improve your fitness; theatre activities to de-stress after your 9 to 5 job; or right-brain activation workshops for management executives – I wish for Darpana to open up a host of new avenues through arts for Amdavadis.
Any major tie-ups or residential systems in the pipeline?
We already have an international student programme where we accept university students to come and study Indian arts and culture. (We run it under our activity called DIPAC). In the years to come, we do plan to scale up these activities, in order to host more students. Currently, we don’t have the capacity to run residential programmes due to space limitations, but that is also being explored.
Advantage of learning different arts?
At Darpana, students get exposure to some of the leading artistes from across the world and receive a chance to watch top-class performances at our theatre, Natarani. Training in various performing arts improves ones focus and concentration and helps develop new motor skills. It also activates different centres in the brain, heightening ones awareness and mental acuity. Arts activities help us develop confidence as well as collaboration and non-verbal communication skills.
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