Video number 2: Dolphin from Navatman Dance

Check it out, folks.



As an update, our social media enterprise is working pretty well, particularly YouTube. At this point, we've attempted putting up 1 minute clips of events we have done, either via Navatman Productions or Navatman Dance. We are utilizing commercials to clarify what and who we are, and try to keep it short or funky and quirky enough to hold your interest.

I love what we've been doing and we've upped our YouTube views to 15,000 total over 10 or so public videos we have as part of our channel using simple raw iPhone videos.

I'm excited to see where we go from here - we'll be next utilizing (slightly) more professional equipment for properly shot, well lit videos and it would be great to see how that ups the level at which people pay attention to what we're doing.

Female aesthetics in Indian classical dance

I have to say, there is one major thing that disappoints me about Indian classical dance today - our obsession with the body being "skinny".

I am definitely culprit of it myself, and our discussions of what we should or shouldn't eat, or how much we would like to reduce our weight has overtaken our daily dance rehearsals.

Why???

I put my foot down this week, and banned us from discussing our bodies, and even then, I still spoke about it once or twice. We are not lazy dancers, We pushing our bodies to the limit in rehearsal 3 hours everyday, 5 days a week. When performances come up, we do double rehearsals twice a day. We are strong, we are flexible, but we are not size zeros, and somehow, this bothers us.

More and more, India is looking west to take on ideals of the body that we have here. I hear major artists talk about how many "thin is in, fat is out" and dancers need to reduce weight to carry themselves on stage.

I just don't believe this to be true. Dancers have to be strong and beautiful. And that can come in many shapes. Yes, overweight is not good, and aesthetics are part of the game since dance is a visual form, but my heart breaks when I see dancers who are size fours and sixes eat two chappatis a night after 6 hours of rehearsal and obsess over themselves to have the body of the 15 year old sitting next to us.

When did we become like this? Oh, right, because of this:


And this:



And this:



We are proud, beautiful, Indian women with curves.

Don't let media moguls suggest otherwise.

Navatman Dance and social media

Hello all!

So I am going to try a series of small experiments involving nonprofit arts production and our dance cmpany. It's rare to find rehearsal clips of dance on youtube, especially of Indian classical dance because I think we all fear that one bad comment. But, sometimes you have to take a risk and accept the feedback!

Sooo I am putting up 1 minute video clips on youtube, inspired by Shankar Tucker and Urban Dance Camp. Let's see how it goes...