Taking Traditional Indian Dance To New Heights With Aravinth Kumarasamy
Did you know that traditional Indian dance is rapidly gaining popularity among youth today? 49 primary schools in Singapore offer traditional Indian dance as a Co-Curricular activity (CCA) and Aravinth Kumarasamy, Artistic Director of Apsaras Arts, shares that up to 47 of them participate in Singapore Youth Festival yearly.
- 2 Mar 2022
Aravinth at the entrance of Apsaras Arts, located at Goodman Arts Centre
Aravinth has spent the last decade nurturing young performers and championing the elegant art form in Singapore and the rest of the world. On top of composing for and choreographing performances, he also constantly looks for ways to collaborate with the world’s leading dance and music exponents.
Ever since its inception, the company has performed with artistes from around the region. A particularly memorable collaboration was when the company worked with the Cambodian Royal Dance Company and gamelan performers—totaling nearly 150 artistes and crew —to perform at the Esplanade in 2013.
Today, traditional Indian dance continues to make waves in society. In the past few years, Aravinth has seen a steady increase in people wanting to pursue it as a part-time occupation or a career. “There are many people from the younger generation who are crazy about Indian classical dance,” he remarks enthusiastically. “There is no shortage of young people on the scene. We have, in the last 20 years, been able to provide a platform for many young Singaporeans to pursue this as a career. This wasn’t possible up until 10 or 15 years ago.”
Participants from a Bharatanatyam Masterclass that Apsaras Arts held in 2015
Apasaras Art Dance company performing in 2017
Bringing Live Dance To Screens Worldwide
Mohanapriyan Thavarajah and Shivangi Dake Robert performing the Ode to Surtya Bharatanatyam and Kathak duet in 2016
Valuing innovation and collaboration meant that Apsaras Arts was able to swiftly pivot to online programming right when the necessary circuit breaker and social distancing measures were rolled out. Apsaras Arts began offering Zoom classes and produced digital performances. The company’s digitisation transformation culminated in the introduction of its digital performance space AVAI. With the ability to host online webinars as well as a variety of free and ticketed performances, dance enthusiasts from Singapore and abroad were able to get a fill of the lively art form from the comfort of their homes. AVAI also functions as an archive for older performances.
Of course, this wasn’t without hard work from Aravinth and his team. Going digital made him and his team even busier, with more work having to be done during performances and post-production. There was also the issue of having to rethink choreography and using cameras efficiently to showcase different perspectives of the performance.
Another major challenge was the inability to source costumes from India anymore. Ever the problem solver, Aravinth reached out to local tailors —some of whom had no experience with dance costumes —and taught them how to stitch traditional costumes from scratch. “You can’t email a dance costume to us, so these were some things that had to be made in Singapore,” Aravinth quips.
Aravinth with traditional Indian dance costumes
Details of the traditional Indian dance costumes
Support To Overcome Challenges
The National Arts Council’s (NAC) stART Fund also ensured that the company could move forward with IPAC, the annual Indian Performing Arts Convention. Instead of being shut down due to the pandemic, the convention adopted a hybrid model to reach its participants. IPAC is dedicated to nurturing the traditional Indian dancers with learning programmes and celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2021. Aravinth was also pleased to share that the company managed to bring IPAC to France on its most recent tour, and was proud to fly the Singapore flag there despite the pandemic.
Dreams For The Future
2022 is shaping up to be a fruitful and ambitious year for Apsaras Arts. “Indian dance from Apsaras Arts is unique because of our collaborations and integration of Southeast Asian cultures. We hope to do more outreach and strengthen our global presence,” Aravinth elucidates. Like many other performing arts troupes, the company is eager to travel and perform again.