A development initiative for South Asian Dance in the North West

The yellow butterfly
The Vancouver experience

The news of receiving the Travel Fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust was not just exciting but much more. It was reassuring to know that life as a dance artist does not stop with serious ageing but at the same time it was frightening. Inevitably, the process of maturing has taken its toll and left its mark in the aching joints, reduced mobility and a lack of confidence - no more a spring chicken.
Closer to 70 than 60, how would I cope with travelling to unknown cities and that too just by myself?

Churchill Memorial Trust gives the financial support, a letter of introduction and  travel insurance. The rest is left up to each recipient to organise for themselves.

My dream was to go to Canada to see what is happening in the field of dance and ageing.

How are they using art for the wellbeing of the older people in the community, what are the thoughts of the mature dance artists on ageing and how can my Canadian encounters influence my search for a 'Late' style of dancing for myself ?

Two chance meetings introduced me to two practioners from Vancouver, Jacci Collins and Barbara Karmazyn.

Jacci is a professionally trained dancer, currently teaching dance to older people. She had traveled to the UK to shadow Dr Richard Coaten and to learn about the work taking place here with dance and older people.

After much deliberation I travelled to Halifax to observe her workshop, thinking that my wobbly knees and fear of falling will restrict me from joining in.

To my surprise I found that in no time, along with other participants,I was fully engaged  on learning the basics of classical ballet and movements from African dance. Having spent some time in South Africa Jacci integrated some of their movements into her routines. I found her teaching style very easy and accommodating. After the session, we talked about dance and we both agreed that it would be beneficial to work together.  I contacted her as soon as I decided to apply for the fellowship.  She sent back a prompt reply full of excitement.

Barbara works at residential care homes and at other centres for  young people with disability.She uses a technique called Brain Dance. She is also known for her lively drumming sessions. I met her at a conference at  Worcester University. That   was a collaboration between their department of Dementia Studies and Vancouver based organisation, The Society for the Arts in Dementia Care. Due to financial restraints the conference was scaled down to a very rich one day seminar. I was very fortunate to have an invitation to dance for the opening of  the seminar. We had only a brief time together but Barbara got an idea of how I work. When I approached her, She sent me several contacts and got me in touch with the right  organisations 

This was a direct result of  networking. It is an area often overlooked by South Asian dance artists.  

Without the help, support and the friendship of these three people, I could not have managed to have as many diverse exposures as I had or gain this much knowledge about the use of art for the welfare of older people, including people living  with Dementia.

In Vancouver I had a full program of activities. This included  visits to care homes, observations,  lectures, workshops, attending performances, working in the studio with a choreographer, meeting academics  working on ancient texts of Indian dance sight seeing and a chance meeting with a fellow student from the University, after nearly forty years.

My first appointment  was at Kinsman Place Lodge in Surrey, BC  to observe some of their  programs. On arrival  I had an official tour of the residential care home.. It was a new building with about 300 rooms  fitted with modern facilities. The rooms were clustered in different ‘neighbourhoods’.

Each ‘neighborhood’ had its own kitchen, dining room, lounge and small areas for  holding  classes and small meetings. The large hall downstairs are used for special parties and ceremonies. Each room had a small glass corner unit outside the door which is like a memory box. The residents  display in their favorite objects, family photographs or newspaper cuttings of special events of their lives in those cabinets. Before entering the room one can have an idea of the person inside the room.The place was clean and comfortable.

The shelves in the individual lounges had  books and CDs. I noticed a box of children's toys and books by the large community hall. It was a thoughtful gesture to encourage the families with young children to come and visit. Jeanne pointed out that unlike most  other care homes that one did not have electronic gates separating the neighborhoods to prevent the residents from wondering out without supervision.

I was taken first to the Art room where I met a Punjabi lady who looked very happy to see me and started to speak in Punjabi. Next we went  to observe the music program. There were about 10 people in that friendly session of conversation and group singing. Each member selected a song from a list while the young music therapist played the guitar and led the singing session. As my host introduced me to the group as the Churchill Fellow visiting from Liverpool, one gentleman from the group gave me a warm smile and started to talk fondly about his childhood in Liverpool. From this moment the whole group accepted me without any prejudice.

In her report Jeanne Summerfield recorded “Watching Bisakha engage with the Elders living at Kinsman Place Lodge was a joy! Bisakha was included in the dialogue, and shared a summer song, singing in Bengali, giving us all a chance to hear something unusual, and beautiful. The group members listened attentively, nodding and smiling as she explained the meaning. As the group broke up at the end of the session, laughter, handshakes, and good wishes echoed down the hall.”

In the afternoon, I had a lecture demonstration organized by  The Society for the Arts in Dementia care.It was attended by both the therapists  and the members of the management team. I laid out a display of photographs, publications and some of the Chaturangan's resources related to dance for older people and to further compliment my lecture I gave a power point presentation. It surprised them to see how in the UK, we are using dance and particularly Indian dance, for the wellbeing of older people.

In Vancouver I came across  many good music and art programs but not dance. The audience was keen and readily joined me in a practical demonstration.  I took them  through a typical session for  older participants.It generated lively discussion. There was  a suggestion of starting a group to  develop  dance based  programs and integrating  multicultural dance input.

I had further opportunity to work with  other care homes like  George Derby and the Drop in centre at The Confederation Community Centre for the Retired. At confederation centre  I  had a large and culturally mixed audience.Nearly fifty of them joined me in a practical session. It was fun and that care free dancing brought people together. The comments of  the participants were touching. One Panjabi lady observed “You are doing a good job of explaining, this is how everyone can learn about each other’s culture and have understanding and harmony” 

Albert, the representative of the residents in George Derby announced   “I give you my heart”.

Barbara Karmazyn wrote, “During the workshop Bisakhashared her love of dance, her culture and, how she came to be here on the Winston Churchill fellowship to follow her dream to come to Canada to inspire us with her love of dance. And she did”.

These presentations left a positive  impression of the dance practice in the UK within the health and wellbeing sector.

Along with learning about the practice of art for older people  in Canada, through this fellowship I also wanted to work on my own dance practice.

On the first day, just after my  presentation Jeanne had to whisk me to the other side of Vancouver  where Jacci  had organised some studio time for us to explore some choreographic ideas.  

Before going to Canada quite unexpectedly I came across a poem ‘Lanix Layalli’  by my favourite Canadian poet, Robert Bringhurst. The words, images and the sentiment of the poem had stirred me deeply. I decided to take that poem as a topic of discussion on choreography and I had emailed the poem to a few dance makers.  
Meeting Jacci in Vancouver was very special. We were happy and excited as there was a sense of satisfaction to think that something that we so casually discussed in UK had actually come true.

However by this time I was exhausted from the travel and the nervous tension of delivering my first lecture in Canada.To tell the truth, I was still overwhelmed by the response from the earlier lecture.

Jacci and I settled over a coffee and a sandwich and allowed time for me to move from one mind set to another. It was like coming out of one world to step into another. The shift from being a facilitator to becoming a performer needs  a change in concentration and attitude.
Jacci was calm and clear about her expectations. She kept an open mind and said  “Let’s get to the studio and see what happens”.
It was this process that we were interested in. The product,if any, was to be a bonus.

Our conversion moved from one topic to another, not knowing what will give us an anchor to follow a choreographic path. During her time in the UK, Jacci had met Fergus Early, a well known mature dance artist developing valuable work with older people. She had a copy of Fergus Early and Jackey Landsley 's book ‘Wise Body'. She asked me to explain  a comment I had made in that book. What she had referred to was a line from a song in praise of Lord Shiva. It was easier to dance to the song than to explain the sentiment in words. This exercise was a good starting point for our choreographic exploration.

Jacci explained how sometimes she  uses the imagery of  landscapes for making dance. She asked me about the landscapes of my childhood. My immediate response was to say "landscape? what landscape? I lived in Kolkata, a busy city with built up areas".

Then I  let my mind relax. Soon  I began to recall beautiful moments connected  to specific  areas and features of the city. I started to dance. My movements were evolving from an imaginary journey through those landscapes. While I was dancing, for the first time I realised that one of the images of Shiva that we use in the dance, actually matches the landscape of India. My journey, through the memory lane, went from urban India to the rural Cheshire in UK and  gradually landed me to Vancouver. I remembered the landscape through which we were driving on our way to the studio. The mountains, the two peaks of Lion’s gate and the stretch known as sleeping princess.

This imaginary journey through  different times of my life turned out to be  an organic unfolding of a choreography with Jacci watching carefully and making suggestions  and giving choreographic instructions. A dance started to emerge. My mind was floating from the past to the present, going backwards and forwards, touching the emotional landscapes evoked by the natural landscapes that had been a part of my life at one time or another.

Years of dancing has embedded different techniques in my body, in my  bones, muscles and joints.Over the years the body has processed them and have found its own way of responding to the signals from my mind. Instead of trying to search for movements as building blocks for constructing the dance, I concentrated on sharpening my awareness of the emotional landscapes and allowed my body to follow. In fact, I was giving Jacci the materials that she can to set within a structure to make a dance. Our collaboration ensured that what was felt and expressed could be  communicated to an audience.

Jacci had already done her research on the poem I had sent her earlier. Larix Lyanni happed to be a  mountain tree. She showed me a picture of the tree, covered in yellow flowers. We agreed that an improvisation  of the poem can nicely follow the dance of the 'landscapes'.
It was a “rough and ready” piece of dance but we were thrilled that it happened.

The Roundhouse Community Centre  invited  me to take an open  workshop with  performance at their studio.There was a gap of about a week between the time  when Jacci and I  worked at the studio and  the workshop. We decided to use this opportunity to present our new dance piece.  

The Round house was a lively community centre at the heart of Vancouver. Jacci had  a dance class for over sixty at this centre.
She had planned a program and facilitated the event. After the usual introduction

Jacci took a warm up session. Barbara  joined us and presented  her ’ Brain dance’  technique. I explained about The Churchill Fellowship and introduced  the group to the special features of Indian dance.Using Chaturangan’s ‘Namaskar’ resource pack of ‘Indian dance for limited mobility’ I took them through different stages of dancing and gradually established  trust.After that it was easy to  introduced the idea of dancing to poetry.

To keep the Canadian connection going, I  used lines from the work  of  the Canadian poet, Robert Bringhurst. Some of the participants knew of his work others did not, still, the idea was received with   amused curiosity. The line I selected was "The seed is the tree thinking and speaking, thinking and speaking its intimate thought of the tree". The group responded enthusiastically showing  total engagement, giving new interpretations along the way. There were much laughter, banter and fun.

One of the participants, Louanna Cocchiarella, from a similar session summed up the mood of the session  as "What I learned and what I continue to reflect upon, is that it is easy to create movements that fill one with joy".

Before I started my performance, Jacci gave a brief introduction explaining the background of our collaboration. 

Half way through my dance I had an idea, to invite the group to join me. Within the text  that I was reciting I slipped in the line that they were dancing to and gestured them to join me. First there was disbelief then a little hesitation but in no time one by one they all got up and joined me in the dance. Slowly I returned to the actual text that was already choreographed. As I repeated the lines second time the group happily continued to improvise. What had started as a solo  turned into a joyful group dance.

Heartfelt thanks to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust for the Fellowship. It has enriched my life beyond my expectation. Again and again I was touched by what Diane Amans, calls  "the brightness of being".

This Fellowship gives one opportunity to rediscover one's own self,  in the words of Ken Robinson a time to be in one's own 'elements'.

Dear reader if you are still with me and wondering, so where is the butterfly?


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Page last updated 03-Dec-2013 - Comments on the website welcome by Eric Foxley at the Dunkirk Arts Centre
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