The idea is to interview one unknown person from a cohort other than yours. Thus you get to know each other while practicing the beautiful craft of interviewing. Kavya began Choreomundus with a Masters in International Development at Sciences Po in Paris, and 20 years of practice in Bharatanatyam. She belongs to cohort #6, which graduated in 2019. Kavya is the kind of person who gives her 100% when she engages in something. The interview went from very general questions, to some personal ones, some recent moments and others from the past. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I did meeting this wonderful person. M. What happened when you finished Choreomundus? K. I danced a lot during the Choreomundus program, so I imagined I would work more as a performer/dancer. But my first “job” reminded me how much I loved research too: to write, to talk, to debate and to analyze. I met Harriet Deacon in 2018 at La Maison de la Culture de France during our Choreomundus intensive in Vitré. She told us she was preparing to work on a project in India where her focus would be on the intersections between marketing, heritage and intellectual property rights. In 2019 we were requested to think of a professionalization project, so I wrote to her, and she said that it was perfect timing: she had begun to work with communities from West Bengal, (the State where I grew up in India) as part of the HIPAMS India project. The project aimed to help these communities to better market their heritage while also being critical and respectful of their ICH; in short, to find harmony between these aspects. I worked with Harriet in a research role among other tasks. The team was composed of experts from Italy, France, and a local Indian NGO called Banglanatak.com. We worked on one dance practice (Chhau Dance), one form of painting and one form of music. Then I took what I call a conscious break and went back home. You know, that feeling... when you feel that it is the right thing to do? I had unfinished business: my final exam for a Masters of Fine Arts in Bharatanatyam was waiting for me since I left for Europe. I took three months to take care of my health, to be with my family and prepare for this exam, which I finished in December. In January 2020 I came to Paris to join my partner Héctor. To be honest, it has not been easy to find a job in a place where you don’t belong. I started working with two other dancers, teaching dance, applying and searching for PhD options and then…COVID-19 happened! Until now, I don't feel like I have taken very big steps after Choreomundus. M. Sometimes we don't perceive quality time sharing with family or choosing a life with a partner as something big. But these times are showing us how important our beloved people are. Things turned in wonderful ways; when I began Choreomundus I thought dance anthropology was one thing, and after those 2 years, I realized many things. Did it happen to you? K. In general I had never touched anything related to anthropology before…I learned so much in these two years! Just the fact that something so close to me such as dance, could be broken down to such an extent was quite new to me. It was shocking to see that almost everything we do in practice can also be theorized, debated and spoken about. Generally when someone speaks about theory of dance, people assume that it means history of dance, but Choreomundus showed me how relevant dance is in the current times, and so related...so interlinked with other subjects that I am very passionate about (gender, race, class issues, decolonisation). There was a big shift in perspective. M. How do you live this Corona time? How do you analyze this situation? K. I deal with it from all different perspectives. I feel both thankful and sometimes guilty. I am in Paris, back home the situation is terrible. Not being able to help my people back home - I feel a bit helpless. I love my country, and sometimes to be in this privileged position is hard to digest. Personally, I feel that what we lack in life is time. This situation forces us to try a bunch of new things, and maybe we love it, maybe we hate it, but at least we try! This situation has given me a lot of time to discover sides of me that I didn't know. Even after so many years as a dancer, I have never choreographed - in the sense of taking the time to reflect, conceptualize, embody ideas, collaborate with others. This time was good to explore; I got to work with people I would have never worked with in other circumstances! A friend from Malaysia in an online “Multi-dancing” project; a friend from Paris, where we constantly pushed each other to try dancing out of our comfort zones. And of course, my mother! She is a Bharatanatyam professional dancer and teacher. We have been practicing together on Skype since the lock down. We create, I learn things from her, we experiment - this has been such a fulfilling and beautiful experience for me. A lot of reflective anthropology also came about after seeing online talks, online performances and debates around online performances (which we - cohort 6 - discussed quite vehemently on our WhatsApp group!). Personally, I do not think the virtual platforms are bad, but there should definitely be some reflection on the part of artists and dancers on what our purpose is, and what we need to do when the world around is in the situation it is in now. That is my new anthropological motivation. I don’t think I would choose to be a screen performer all the time. It won’t be my priority. But at the moment I do like to research what is possible, and that has been a huge learning. M. Coming from contexts outside of Europe, perhaps something that you produce online with your friends in Paris can be read completely differently in your home country and vice versa. There is an interest in that part... It is wonderful what you said about your mum, could you tell me more? K. This pandemic made my mum and me come together to work. All these years our relationship was like any other Indian classical dancer: your guru is unquestionable, you’re the student, you go to class and practice your items and that's all. But that equation changed a bit. We take more risks now - together! “Amma, I´m not going to do this one, because it is the same thing about a woman crying, waiting for her lover. Let’s create something new. Let’s explore other narratives through and within the Bharatanatyam realm.” Suddenly I saw that I have also grown as a dancer, as a thinker. This changed our relationship: there is more friction between us, in a good sense. It brings out issues that we need to talk about. I have a voice in what we do and create. Mum is my guru, my inspiration and my mentor. She is open to it but she also resists, and we have real discussions and arguments about how to make Bharatanatyam more relevant to society! M. I feel that in this way of working together, she created a space for you to become an adult. I think that during lockdown, people´s relationship with their practice is becoming more intimate. We have to face ourselves and make it happen, we find within ourselves the embodied knowledge, we have to dance alone. Perhaps you were able to choreograph long ago, but never dared because you had to think about many things, relate to others with respect to some hierarchies, maybe you were busy with other things, and now in quarantine, you found the space and the courage to do it. What is your relationship with Bharatanatyam at the present? K. My relationship with Bharatanatyam has evolved a lot. I believe the community is very closed; we don’t question the history, themes and the stories of the dance form, we don’t question how it is still so classist, how only certain sections of people do it. And I think there is a fear: people who don’t understand the form very well often feel alienated. The dance form is beautiful. It is great to keep within its structural boundaries, but we should not let these become a barrier. I think the form needs to change, not necessarily the way we dance it, but the themes we portray need to evolve. We are in the XXI century, there has to be some reflection: why and how is Bharatanatyam relevant for our society and how can it be more relevant? That will be my quest. M. What do you feel for your cohort? K. I love them. My first Masters in Paris in Development was stimulating with motivated people who wanted to change the world. But it also implied a competitive and egocentric environment. I did make a lot of friends, but not really deep relationships. Choreomundus was the opposite: we did have competition but with love and respect for each other. The fact that we were so small in number was a huge positive: we could know each other in a very special way. I tend to be empathetic; I make connections everywhere I go. But Choreomundus goes a step deeper. My fellows are not just my colleagues, not just friends, it went a step beyond that. Professionally they pushed me to do things I would have never dared to do on my own. Valentina, Estefania and me went for yoga. They pushed me to try contemporary. Emmanuel was and is always ready to try new projects. Jesus and I often worked with common rhythm structures in Salsa and Bharatanatyam. My girls Katia and Pamela taught me so many important lessons on life and love. Mululu and Sam showed me what kindness and care really mean. We were always encouraging each other - in other environments this kind of growing together is kind of rare. They are my Choreomundus people. M. In the beginning of this interview, when I asked what you did, you said “nothing big, no publications, no papers, not much” and then you shared with me stories about important personal decisions with your partner, you finished other Master, you created with your mum, you traveled, collaborated… all these wonderful things that happened only in one single year! That is why I ask: How do you understand success? What is to be successful? Both in Academia and in dance, we were taught that when you finish something you have to go towards the next step, the higher challenge, society tamed us to always run behind something, simultaneously showing us that we will never reach that perfection... 99% of people end up feeling that they will never be successful, that they can not. I think it is very important to change that perception, I even see it as a postcolonial shift. K. We, ambitious people, tend to connect success to achieving things like milestones: Choreomundus, check! PhD, check! Work with XYZ, check! Choosing Choreomundus was a big change; what I then considered a risky decision in my life. Definitely I think I make the same assumptions about myself: trying to achieve what society thinks is a good idea. But you’re right. How hard these last few months have been! But they have also been a time for healing and a time for nurturing so many new ideas! All of that is something to be proud of, valuable moments which may not fall under the traditional view of success. Success does not always need to be seen as achieving a goal, but in terms of how much you have grown, or how much you have evolved, what has changed in your life, how much positive change you have affected in your community; it is nice to have this change in perspective. Success is not about being worried about whether others approve if you did something well or not, but to know for sure that what you do for is important enough and making a difference. M. Do you want to leave a last message to the readers of this wonderful chat? K. I think what we are doing is important - a program on dance is essential. Sometimes the socio-politics in the world makes us think that dance is not important. But if we continue to work hard and believe in ourselves, we can prove that dance and movement, indeed, deserve a much larger place in the world. See Also: kAVYA'S INSTAGRAM
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