Bringing ballet to light

A former pilot who took to dancing during her teen years decided it was her calling — and started a professional dance school along with two other dance enthusiasts in Chennai, miles away from her home town in Malta! Michelle Sharma, one of the co-founders of the Danzza Institute of Modern Dance, is over the moon as their brainchild is ready for its first stage show — and is close to finishing two years since its inception.

“Danzza was founded by Vikram Naidu, Hari Krishnan and I. Hari is also a choreographer in the Tamil film industry. The three of us think that a professional dance school is necessary to encourage those who want to take up dancing for life. We teach dance forms like ballet, jazz, tap, contemporary, Bollywood, hip hop, and more — and have students aged from 4 to 60, who all show similar spirit and love towards dancing,” Michelle says about the academy’s birth.

What makes Danzza’s teaching all the more interesting is their belief that parents should be a part of the child’s activities. “We encourage parents to be a part of what the children do at the academy. We have parents who come in and dance to ballet tunes along with their kids, and this helps the parents in understanding what the child is interested in — so they don’t blindly send them to practice. For our stage show, we will also have some of the adults performing!” she exclaims.

Michelle also shares that it is a matter of celebration for dance on the whole that there are many who have persisted with their childhood dance classes, and are even taking it on as a profession — “Earlier, some parents used to see a ballet class as a mere fashion statement — a matter of showing off with pride that their kids take up this unique form of dance, and wear tutus! Now I meet some young ballerinas who take their dance very seriously and want it to be their career. It is inspiring to be teaching such children. I think dance shows like So You Think You Can Dance have contributed significantly to this change in attitude among Indians and the way they see ballet,” believes Michelle.

Their performance at the show will be unique and shall use dance to unfold a memorable story, she concludes.

(Danzza’s stage show will be held on Friday, August 5, at Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall, Chetpet)