The latest edition of Dance A’fair, the dance festival hosted by The Floor will be held on June 2 at JT Pac and June 3 at Crowne Plaza. Arunima Gupta and her team is all set to make this two days long dance celebration power packed with performances and workshops

Text Credits: Raveena Nair

The Floor is a dance and movement studio located in Kadavanthara, Kochi run by Arunima Gupta, a renowned dancer, choreographer and Zumba instructor herself. Arunima started her training in dance with Indian classical forms Bharathnatyam and Odissi. She says that the classical forms either western or eastern, are always the foundation, the vocabulary on which other dance forms are built on.

Further, she trained under the pioneers of then known as Navanritya, Manjushree Chaki Sarkar and her daughter Ranjabati Sarkar. That was the time when dance was becoming a medium of expression and not just a form of entertainment with the experimental moves made in contemporary even where the classical forms are the backbone.

That one moment that you live for…PERFECTION in DANCE

A post shared by Arunima Gupta (@guptaarunima) on Nov 5, 2016 at 12:40am PDT

The openness of Contemporary dance form attracted Arunima and from the age of 12 and has transformed into her lifestyle. All the other dance forms she has learned stands as the words she uses to express herself through this dance form.

When asked to pick one from Contemporary and Zumba, Arunima doesn’t take a minute to ponder over and picks Contemporary. She says, “Contemporary is part of who I am, it is a reflection of who I am. I like Zumba, it is also a part of me. It keeps me fit and it is a lot positivity, energy and joy. But if someday it happens that I cannot Zumba anymore, I will survive.”

Talking about this edition of Dance A’fair, Arunima herself is very excited about the production called Tagore Scape which is choreographed by her. It is an interpretation of verses on seasons through dance from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali. Also the Melody Man, which is a musical performance based on The Pied Piper of Hamelin, by the children.

Source: The Floor

To master any art form, it takes a lifetime and it is not possible to learn every dance form available, but each experience will add on to it and leave an impression on the artist. She says, “When I joined the contemporary dance team of Manjushree Chaki Sarkar, I was exposed to various workshops of jazz, ballet, yoga, hip-hop and many other forms that lasted for three to four days. It helps you to adapt yourself and your body to those movements and that expands the scope of movements in your body.”

Every workshop and artist we come across will have a subconscious impression on us which will contribute to our personality and later help us to identify what we would like to understand in depth. Nourishing this thought, this edition of Dance A’fair will have mentors from across the country.

The first day will be kick start with Arclight, an evening of performances by both artists and students which is after a month long vigorous practice sessions at The Floor. The evening of performance will have a wide variety of genres like Ballet, Contemporary, Dance-Theatre, Chhau, Afro- Latin and Hip Hop and a Flamenco presentation by Paris Laxmi.

The second day of Dance A’Fair is named Alloy, which is a series of classes by renowned artists and mentors of dance and fitness. The workshops that stretches from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm is promised to be packed with fun and lots of learning.

Sudakshina Thampi the Instant Yogi will be taking the yoga workshop. Other mentors who will be conducting the workshops are Rahul Chhetri for Chhau, Megha Khatri for Flexibility and Afro-Latin, Shreenath Muthyala and Arunima Gupta will be taking Ballet-Contemporary workshop and Alex Diaz will be conducting Salsa. The spotlight event of the evening is a Zumba Master-class from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm conducted by the lead ZES and Global Brand Ambassador Sucheta Pal, who is a recipient of the First Ladies Award presented to her by President Ram Nath Kovind.

The event will be followed by an after party with DJ Alex Diaz, where the celebration of dance will continue with a Latin flavor in association with the Latin social.