D For Dance

When it comes to utilising movement therapy in the field of education,she uses dancers,theatre artists and puppeteers,and through various exercises,explains difficult concepts of physics,chemistry and mathematics. “For example,we teach the alphabet by making that shape through body formations,” she says.

Inspired and guided by renowned dance movement therapy teacher,Tripura Kashyap,Ghosh has developed a first-of-its-kind curriculum for NCERT and couple of schools in the Capital have already put it to practice. “We are trying to push NCERT to make it a part of syllabi all over India,” she says.

When she is not dancing,Ghosh’s busy acting and doing voice-overs for Unesco and Unicef projects. Apart from choreographing for Pogo’s Galli Galli Sim Sim,she has worked with Akademi,London,as the first dance training development officer for South Asian Dance in the UK.

“Choreographing for Bollywood is tempting but I fear they’ll tamper with my art,” she says. Kathak,she explains,comes from the word katha. It’s a story told through dance and unlike other traditional forms like Kuchipudi and Bharatnatyam,Kathak is flexible. “It can say one thing in 100 different ways.”

She admits it has a few takers,and men have started shying away from traditional dance forms. “Ironically,masters in the world in dance are still men,” says the dansuese,whose dissertation for her MPhil was ‘Masculinity in Dance’,and how men find dance too feminine to take it up full-time.

A contemporary dancer who stays true to her traditional Kathak roots,Ghosh credits her love for the arts to her mother. “Had she not been enterprising and pushed me into art and culture activities,I wouldn’t have answered my calling,” she says.