The economics of dance

Unlike the stereotypical economist, Debapriya Das will not be seen sitting amidst stacks of papers at all times. She prefers to express herself through dance! The young dancer is all set to stage her first ever solo production  — The RaS Project on April 1 which is a retelling of the Ramayana from a women’s perspective, through the form of belly dancing.

Apart from that, she is also conducting a workshop on Egyptian Oriental dance. We get a peek into the ace dancer’s world on her perspectives, future plans, and journey so far.

For somebody who has been dancing since she was eight, going up on stage isn’t such a daunting task. “My parents put me in a Bharatanatayam class when I was only eight and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I was so in love with dance that I wanted to explore other forms,” says the dancer who currently knows five forms of dance including Kathak, Ballet, Bharatanatyam, Contemporary dance and belly dance.

Curious about the form of Egyptian dance, we prod her to tell us about it. “Egyptian oriental dance is so much more than just regular belly dancing, which makes up for only a tiny portion of it. There are a number of styles that people aren’t aware about and I want to change that because they are equally beautiful. I also feel like dance is so much more than just movement. One needs to understand the background and cultural history behind it to be able to pick it up easily,” says the dancer.

And coming to her first solo production – The RaS project, Debapriya says, “As a kid, mythology and epics have always interested me . But with these stories I have noticed that all of them focus on male characters while female characters just there around them – with no back stories or anything.

Whether it is Sita, Mandodari or Shoorpanaka, they’re all given the same status. So I wanted to explore their side of the story – depict their emotions and life through dance.”And the best part of all of this is that it is going to be performed by regular women. “There are mothers, housewives, students and a lot more – none of them are trained dancers. I wanted to train people with stories to tell stories,” she smiles.

Juggling between working on concepts like sustainable development and dance, doesn’t sound easy though! “I work seven days a week and when I get the time, I just like to sleep,” sighs the dancer wistfully. But if she had the time, what would she like to do? “I always loved reading about mythology and loved history – so much so that in college, I would creep into history classes just because I loved them, even though I was an economics student,” she reminisces.