My initiation into dance
Today happens to be International Dance Day and I was wondering how do I celebrate this day. Then a thought struck me. Why not kick myself into writing again? My theme has been dance and corporate learning. So here I am beginning my writing afresh, chronicling my dance journey, and my experiences and learnings.
My journey of dance was just not my journey, it included a big part of my family, especially my parents, and their struggles to make dance happen for me. My daughter loves to listen to these stories, and I have repeated them multiple times to her. But what used to be just stories initially, changed to realizing my life's learnings. And it is best I jot down my stories and learnings, hoping it makes some difference 😊
My initial exposure to dance came from my aunts, with whom I was growing up. Again as I look back, I realize my family was a talented lot, but with no exposure and limited resources, the talent was pushed back in life's struggles. I have been really blessed to be able to make something out of what I inherited from them.
My youngest aunt who was in high school, was a good writer, singer, dancer and her elder sister supported her very well in her pursuing this passion. They were not exposed to classical dances at that time, nor did they attend dance classes. Their learning came from watching the semi-classical dances in movies, especially mythological movies.
But was it just "watching" dances in movies? I have to correct myself here, and say they "observed", not just "watched". Why do I say this? Given our situation, movies were a luxury. It was a time, we went to theaters to watch movies, no TV, no recorded options. I am talking of the 70s and 80s 😊 It was a one-time watch of the dances in the movie theater, and my aunts had to assimilate it into themselves. They had to observe well, as they didn't have a second chance. From here, they had to take back a photographic (or is it videographic?) memory of the movements of the hands and legs, the expressions that the dancers on screen portrayed. They then recreated it in their own way into beautiful pieces on the same songs or others. My young aunt used to practice this for her performances in school.
Now, that's where my part came in. As a little kid of 5 years, it was about watching her and trying to copy her. The curiosity was probably what was driving me to learn the movements. Seeing me repeating the moves, my aunts started teaching me officially the semi-classical dances 😊 And that's how my journey with dance started.
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Observation is an art
The maximum learning in our life happens when we are kids. As kids, the curiosity levels are really high. Everything around them is a mystery to explore. Kids observe in detail. Everything they see, they assimilate, they repeat, they learn. The more they observe, the more they learn. This should continue to apply as we grow.
Even as dancers, we continue to learn by observing our gurus or experts performances. It's a continuous process of growth that never ceases. We need to be curious of the stories, the portrayals, the details of choreographies to learn better and improve our own contributions.
Observation is a key necessity in our career lives too. There is so much to learn just by observing our peers, our seniors, our leaders on how they execute projects, take decisions, handle people aspects and many more things. Not all learning can come from the classroom trainings. A major chunk of it comes from observing everyone around us. A year into the role, and NO, we cannot say we have learnt it all. The curiosity to watch around us, link the topics, build big picture will lead us to innovate and grow.
Observation and curiosity are also driving factors as leaders for better decision making. Observation of the details of a situation, being curious and enquiring, questioning, reasoning, using the facts from the observation all help together to make the right decisions.
Observation and curiosity need to go hand in hand to help us learn and excel.
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