Contemporary Dance Workshop - Celebrate Yourself!

Words aren’t enough to put down all the feelings that I experienced during our contemporary workshop, it was a very different experience from what a normal workshop would comprise of. It wasn’t all about techniques or the commercialized aspect of dance. This workshop helped us connect with our bodies like we had never connected before. There were simple things like being aware about our breathing which we normally take for granted but through the workshop one realizes how small things make a big difference in our lives.

Gautam Nima and Pushpanjali Sharma are the ideal teachers that one could find. Watching them move leaves you in awe because they make it look so effortless. One gets comfortable with them from the moment one meets them. The energy they exude is very welcoming and makes you automatically want to share things with them.  Gautam told us that contemporary means “now” and contemporary dancing was all about taking the present moment and making it ours. He made things look all so simple through his amazing way of teaching us. He stresses on the importance of movement in our lives and how our bodies are meant for movement. He taught us how to make everybody dance and that literally means every part of the body. From the hair on your scalp to the nails on your toes, every tingle of energy has to be felt for your body to move effortlessly and that’s what pure dancing is all about.

The power of imagination that Gautam gave us made us travel under water at times, dancing freely under the ocean like a seaweed and at times made us feel like a bird with wings that could fly freely in the open sky. At the end of these sessions we all felt extremely relaxed. Normally people feel tired after dancing but it was just the reverse here, we felt as though we had just got out of a spa session. Totally soothing is the power of pure, honest emotions that are created in our body when we move with that level of comfort with our bodies and the spirit joins in to transport us to a different world while you are dancing. The entire workshop was based on “celebrating yourself” and did we, do it? Hell yes!! We did it!! Dancing crazily, like kids, awakening the tribal free spirit within us, feeling the energy of each of us while dancing together. Vibrating like atoms of the same element, feeling closer to ourselves and our lives like never before. All the experiences that we shared with each other at the end of every class were a proof to this celebration of ours. There’s so much more I would want to say about this incredible experience but as mentioned at the start of this article words wouldn’t suffice, one needs to truly experience it to get a feel of it. They say pictures speak volumes, our happy faces in the pictures say it all ;-)

Thank you, Gautam, and Pushpanjali for giving us this experience that will last a lifetime. For teaching us that dance is spiritual, divine, pure and so much more.