``"Dance when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free," —This is one of the perennial quotes of Rumi that any passionate dancer would be able to relate to. The flow and rhythm dance brings to anyone’s life is a joy unmatched, often creating poetry in motion. This sense of rhythm is even more important when one aspires to master the physically intense Latin and Afro-Latin dance forms like Salsa, Bachata, and Kizomba, among others.
With the demand for such dance training increasing in the city, Salsawala Studios has carved a special niche in the same. We speak with the founders of the studio, dancer-choreographer duo Hitesh H Teckchandani, aka Salsawala and Priyam Bose, who tell us what led them to start Salsa by the Lake and teach various global dance forms to their students. Excerpts:
What made you initiate this project and the institute?
Hitesh: I was always determined to return to Kolkata. In 2014-15, after my higher studies in dance and culture, I started giving training at a fitness studio. But I always aspired to curate a more flexible training programme independent of others’ interference. It was only after COVID that a lot of spaces were shut down. And that we thought was the best time to plunge in.
Priyam: Coming from a Bengali household, I’ve always been into training in classical dance styles like Kathak and a few others. I eventually started learning the Indian contemporary dance form, joined the Mamata Shankar ballet troupe, and stayed there for 13 years. As I started growing up, I wanted to try and learn different styles as well and trained myself in some hip-hop, ballet, kalaripayattu, and ultimately, the Latin dance forms. Being a dancer and being as versatile as possible is something that I’ve always loved to do, and then educating people in whatever little I know has always been a personal favourite thing to do.
So, what made you remain closest to or choose the Latin/Afro-Latin dance forms?
Hitesh: For me, it was the fact that it was so real every time I was dancing with the same person—the whole impromptuness, the whole reality of that moment. I really enjoy that and how I adjust and recalibrate my energy to the person opposite. Suppose you are in a happy mood, your body language is one thing; the moment you get distracted, the body language would change immediately. So that realness and being able to balance that and still have a great dance is what my drug is like.
Priyam: I think I love Salsa a lot if we talk about partner dancing. But otherwise, my other love is contemporary. It lets your body mould and flow like you are water.
How has the city responded to partner dancing?
Hitesh: I am just going to take you back a little bit. In 2016, we started Salsa in the Lakes, which used to take place every Sunday from 7 to 8 am. The idea was to bring to the public view, out in the open, the inhibitions around such close dance forms, which are actually representatives of different cultures. Maybe the dance form is still new to us, and hence the misconceptions. The entire movement is to alleviate misconceptions around couple dancing. Since 2016, there has been a sea of change, with Salsa, Bachata, and Kizomba gaining respectability among the young and exposed crowd. We have also started sessions like Hot Latin Thursday in nightclubs, where your partner can literally be anyone. From receiving threat calls to completing a decade of hosting Salsa in the Lakes, it indeed has been a great journey.
Would you say that there is still a dearth of purist global dance forms in Kolkata?
Priyam: I think there may be a dearth of knowledge.
Hitesh: I disagree with Priyam on this. I don’t think there’s a dearth of knowledge at this level. It is the balance that people have to strike between want ing to do purist dance styles and earn a living. So it’s like having a kind of sustainable module and also being pure at the same time, which is why the influence might be slower, but it’s not because the teachers lack training. Sometimes, to make it palatable for the audience, one also needs to mix a little fun into the pure dance form.
I’m not saying pure is not fun, but how commercialised you want to make it is the line that needs to be drawn. Because, at the end of the day, we are living in India; we just can’t suddenly expect everybody to become Cuban! That is a very strange expectation.
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