International Dance Day: Many late bloomers in Thiruvananthapuram are discovering the joy of dance

Many late bloomers in Thiruvananthapuram are taking to dance to rekindle their childhood aspirations

Bhavana R Nair’s video of her gracefully moving her feet to ‘There was a ship that put to sea...’, won her many hearts when she shared it on social media.

Bhavana has always enjoyed shaking a leg. Workplace and household responsibilities often held her back from hitting the dance floor as much as she would have liked. Nevertheless, she made it a point to attend dance workshops regardless of the style. In her early forties, she joined a Kathak class led by acclaimed danseuse Monisa Nayak. Since then, Bhavana has been in step with her passion for dance.

“To learn to dance has been a long-cherished dream that I am living now. It has also been a therapeutic experience,” she says.

Kala Kishore, a medical practitioner, agrees dancing has been therapeutic for her too “but there is more to it,” she says. She was in love with dance and yearned to learn classical dance but her conservative family felt it was not suitable for “a young lady from a good family,” laughs Dr Kala, Associate Professor of Transfusion Medicine in Medical College, Trivandrum.

Her husband encouraged her to follow her heart and when she found a teacher in Aswathy Nair who was willing to give wings to her dream, she joined her class eight years ago to learn Bharatanatyam.

“It is not easy to practise a disciplined dance form like Bharatanatyam if you have not learned it in your youth. But I persisted and now I miss the stage if I don’t dance,” says Kala, who is now in her early fifties.

Gayathri Nair, another late bloomer on the dance stage, shares Kala’s opinion. Growing up in London, she recalls attending Bharatanatyam classes as a child. She could not continue her classes. In her forties, she enrolled for a dance class teaching free style dance. She rediscovered her twinkle toes and went on to become a part of Dancing Battalion, a city-based dance troupe.