Committed steps
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Money is the last thing that should be on the guru’s mind, says Bharatanatya dancer Minal Prabhu SHILPA SEBASTIAN R.
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Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.
MOTIVATED Minal Prabhu: ‘You shouldn’t become a dancer for monetary benefits.’
The first thing that strikes you about Minal Prabhu is her prominent nose stud and intense dark brown eyes that looks right into your soul. She is petite in form but her conviction is robust. Minal Prabhu, the Bharatanatya dancer, is a teacher, cho
reographer, founder and artistic director of Mudrika School of Performing Arts.
Minal started learning Bharatanatya at the legendary dance school Adyar Kalakshetra in Chennai. “I was eight when I got in and when I left I was 18 and a well-groomed dancer,” remembers Minal, who gives complete credit to her parents for her being a dancer.
So did they design her destiny? “Never felt that way. If I was not happy, I sure had the freedom to just walk out of the school,” she says and recalls her days at the Kalakshetra, where she underwent rigorous training and lived with the bare minimum necessities. The ambience was clean but we had no luxury. We spent our time dancing through the day, from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. We did this besides our regular schooling. Though Rukmini amma never took classes regularly, she did choreograph a few varnams for us,” explains Minal.
“Everything was very organised — sleep, food and the curriculum. The food was not very tasty but it did a lot of good to our health and stamina. At Kalakshetra we were pickled in dancing. Our knowledge about science or general knowledge may have been pathetic, but we had an in-depth training in Bharatanatya. It was our way of life and we learnt the aesthetics and the disciplines of being a good dancer. Dance was a way of life for us.”
Once she was back home in Bangalore, it was natural for her to start Mudrika in 1976 in Malleswaram. She trains numerous students from varied backgrounds in pursuing the art form. “Things are so different now. Students come in twice or thrice a week. And I as a teacher have to pack in the best to make the class interesting. Today dance has many threats in the form of TV, education, malls and so on. As a teacher you can’t be too stern as students will just not come back. It is our duty to sweeten the pill for them to swallow the art, so that it will live without giving anyone a chance to compromise on the quality,” adds Minal.
Since the boundaries are already laid out is there any chance for the dancer to evolve as an artiste?
“As people evolve so does the art and there is plenty to play around within the boundary itself. A dancer has to change with time, for instance, in the early days a varnam would be presented for a minimum of 45 minutes, today, who has the patience to sit through such long items? You will automatically cut down the duration and pack in the best so that the audience will not get bored. That’s where your creativity as a choreographer comes through. My strengths lie in my ability to teach and choreograph,” says Minal who has done a lot of choreographies for Mudrika and has also travelled abroad with her dance choreographies. She also teaches Bharatanatya at Attakalari and at the Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography. Minal is a friend, teacher and a guide to her students but then she is also a strict disciplinarian who “teaches only those who have a passion for the form. I have sent back some children who fared badly or came due to parental pressure. I have learnt more by teaching than by learning. Learning is a continuous process and it is always happening in one’s mind and soul,” says the dancer. She dismisses the “myth” about youngsters being lured to the western culture and not taking to Indian classical dance by saying: “ I live on the same street as Padmini Ravi and Kiran Subramanyam. All three of us are always full. Surely that does convey something?”
Minal feels that dancers today fare much better than those of the earlier days as “they can sustain themselves with dance. Dance should not be done just for monetary benefits. If as a dancer you think so, your art and motive become selfish. May be you cannot earn as much as IT professionals do, but you can make enough money besides doing something that you enjoy,” says Minal who in her 30 years in dance has encouraged only four of her students to have their arangetram. “It should not be a business. The idea differs from person to person. I make the child have his/her arangetram only after I’m convinced they are serious. Dance is a complete discipline.”
Minal Prabhu can be contacted on 9342016977 or 23348825.
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