How my perception towards dance changed over the years

As far as I remember, the earliest memory of my life is me turning an old cassette and switching it on, and just dancing. I don’t know if I danced well or they were thrilled seeing a small girl trying hard to match rhythm copying the signature step of the song but they seemed so enchanted. Yes. I remember that. I loved seeing people clapping for me, giving me chocolates, requesting me to dance, I lived that. I am truly grateful to be able to practice this art since my childhood.

As I turned teenage, I began dancing even more. With lots of programs in schools like Parent’s day, cultural day, annual function, children’s day, and so on, I was always forth running to ensure my name in the dance group. There were also times when I used to feel sad when the dance teacher didn't select me for the center in the dance number. I felt unworthy to be in the center, for the dance, and well probably because I had boys cut that avoided me as a girl lead. Even though I was an introverted and shy little girl, dancing never kept me away from crowds of people eagerly witnessing my dance. That’s how I boosted my confidence with the mass. When I introspect this fact today, I feel I was dauntless because I never cared about anybody. Rather it made me happy from within. I loved being around people appreciating my dance. It wasn’t made for that mere selfishness of appreciation rather because of my austerity towards dance. I am not an extraordinary dancer nor do I specialize in any form of dance, I am just a normal below-average dancer but I prefer the word ‘austerity’ because I have passionately respected it and practiced it more than anything in my life.

During my teenage years, for the very first time, I got introduced to the idea of tributing the god ‘’Natraj’’ before starting off dance. We were not stereotypical traditional dancers but they made us follow this. It was all bullshit to me before but now I really love this transition of expressing love to art. I am sure many teenage girls don’t know who is ‘’Natraj’’ and what essence that carries despite their religion. Or they might have their own god for the art of dance too, that’s great. They feel it’s just for entertainment purposes but dance is more than that. It’s a manifold of various aspects of cosmic energy. It is not a warm-up but a discipline, respect, and passion expressing gesture. As a teenager who came up with lots of emotional turmoil, I began dancing not only in front of people but inside a room, in almost all songs. Imitating a signature step from my favorite actress was heart-opening excitement to me. I began dancing to all the songs, even sad songs, how funny is that. Well, this might not be funny these days as there are dance genres for dancing sad songs now like contemporary dance but I wasn’t aware about this and was not so popular on those days too. Whenever I say those days, I feel so old. Ok jokes apart.

As the wave of women empowerment touched me, I began discarding the item numbers. I mean those were my favourite, those glitters, those moves, those catchy lines damn, but I gave up on imitating or playing these songs. I feel sad for myself that I danced without even realizing the lyrics were so intentionally sexually objectifying. 

My parents have such typical dancing skills, like one during bhajans, and I love watching that, sometimes I taunt her too about her moves. She used to tell me, dancing wasn’t considered a tradition of a well-off family at our times. Any girl who used to dance was expected to elope soon. I got furious. How can you represent the stronger aspect of flexibility of women as the weaker aspect? I felt like people always find a way to oppress women and show them less. Thankfully I didn’t grow up in that generation. I love old Nepali songs, that music, those enthusiastic vibes, those evergreen songs are always on the music in the loop. But whenever I try to select songs to dance in any program now, I have a hard time selecting one. As most of them are related to age, the use of untamed excitement of women and desperation creates an awkward environment. Seeing lots of cinemas where women are generally entertaining and sometimes seducing gods and men as ‘royal dancers’ and ‘Urvashis’, I felt a bit odd. This art was not considered phenomenal rather objectification and tools to introduce pleasures. That’s what women are made for and are capable of, or even worthy of. I began dancing less. With a lot more news of rapes and pornography dominance, I am afraid that whether the audience's eyes are vulture eyes looking for bulging flesh or differently structured flesh. I am afraid of people capturing my dance videos as they might be misinterpreted or even misled.

Recently, TikTok has been a popular entertainment app. But I saw so many minors doing doing steps that is probably something I wasn't ready for till today. I know I might sound too conservative but it isn’t. I don’t mean they can’t practice those dance moves, they are fun. But the thing is when there is so much of child pornography, child trafficking severely attacking the world. The exposure of these children who don’t know these harsh realities of life directly linked with culprits looking or prey or ignorance on what those steps can be misinterpreted as can’t be considered a bliss. Aren’t we as somehow learned generation to be held responsible? In the name of the generation of social media, everything trending in the world is not cool, everything that westerners have adopted isn’t to be welcomed without counter-check. Over imposing social media should be made a check, it begins from family, and importantly on individuals. I don’t mean parents should restrict these apps or anything but we are all new to this generation, the overwhelming response of social media can be our self-harm. I have no hard feelings for the culture celebrating these dances, they are wonderful, I have an equal amount of respect for all of them, honestly, but I believe these arts are highly misused and misinterpreted by the media. That offends me. The kind of immensely odd situational dance on social media shouldn’t be normalized. What they are following is just a small aspect of dance. I respect everyone’s rights but is it worth it? Those children who aren’t aware of any kind of negative aspects of society and negative consequences of social media are falling prey to a lot of negative energies. Dance can be of any form, dance should be respected whether it is done by strippers or prostitutes, or ordinary girl, any movements if any parts of the body are not a welcome to judgments in life. Let them know the gods of dance and power of dance. Or they might have their own god for the art of dance too, that’s great. Let these girls dance in any way they like, but until they know its interpretation, its essence, its value, awareness about moves they are conducting themselves to, this needs to be stopped normalizing.