Creative passion is an ardent desire of an innovation-hungry mind and a transformation-thirsty heart. Living her childhood dream, V Soumyasri Pawar reveals that her inspiration behind venturing into the business arena has been her own journey. And the realization that Art –whether it is dance, music or drama–is the strongest communicator prompted her and her team of Devmudraa to encourage more and more children and students to take careers in alternative subjects apart from the regular career options.

According to Soumyasri, the Director of this performing arts school in Aurangabad, a student with a creative bent of mind can go for such courses but the fear of lack of employment in these fields is stopping the parents to enrol their children in such courses. She informs, “But helping them get a university degree or diploma and creating new jobs in this field is our motto. So it is more than a business for us. It is our mission to give quality education in performing arts to the students of this area, especially the Marathwada region.”

An Artistic Endeavour

Soumyasri, a Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi dance artiste, teacher and choreographer is originally from Hyderabad but settled in Mumbai and later in Aurangabad since the year 2006. A postgraduate in Bharatanatyam and Choreography from Nalanda Nritya Kala Mahavidyalaya, University of Mumbai, presently, she is pursuing her PhD in inter-disciplinary subjects of Dance and Drama from Dept. of Performing Arts, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad. She is also Asst. Professor at the Dept. of Dramatics and Dance here in the university.

Soumyasri belongs to a family of performing artists in Hyderabad where three of her paternal aunts are eminent personalities in the field of classical dances namely Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam. “Thus, the seed of the dance was sown in me when I was a toddler and went on to enrol myself in a degree course in dance at Nalanda Nritya Kala Mahavidyalaya affiliated with the University of Mumbai at the insistence of my Aaunt and Guru Dr Rajyalakshmi Seth from Mumbai,” she states.

Thus began her dance journey and, “Studying at Nalanda Nritya Kala Mahavidyalaya introduced me to a world of our vast culture and heritage,” she adds.

Staying in a big city like Mumbai opened many opportunities as well as collaborations, and interactions and thus Soumyasri met her husband Ramdas Pawar who is an educationist, poet, writer and artist. She says, “Our teaching jobs took us to the hills of Mussoorie and Rishikesh in Uttarakhand to Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, allowing me to spread my dance wings.” She got many opportunities as a choreographer, teacher and dance therapist in boarding schools, Ashrams and colleges. With the vast multi-cultural exposure and experience behind her, she settled in Aurangabad in the year 2006 and then began her journey and main aim of life …

Voyage of Self-Exploration

“With so much travel and seeing different cultures and best of the amenities in educational and cultural institutions in metro cities, my dream was to create a space where I settle – a modern Gurukul, so thus the idea of Devmudraa came and it became a reality from our drawing room to school halls to our own space now where we have a performance hall, rehearsal rooms, audio-video equipped library and quality education in dance are given in Aurangabad,” she shares.

She further says that their institute, Devmudraa a movement school, is run by Devmudraa Trust (of which Soumyasri is the President) in Aurangabad established in the year 2007. It is dedicated to the spreading of performing arts, especially classical dance and allied art forms through quality educational courses affiliated with reputed universities in the country. They also give exposure to their students from Aurangabad and Marathwada region to the experts and eminent artists from all over the country and abroad through lecture demonstrations, workshops and festivals in Aurangabad.

She adds, “We have students from the small town and rural districts of the Marathwada region.” In the last fifteen years, they have made a name for themselves in the field of classical dance and performing arts, thus, giving diplomas to post-graduate level training in Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi dance forms, short-term courses in Dance teacher training, choreography, folk dances, drama and music.  Their students are excelling in exams and at state and national level competitions and also received CCRT Merit scholarships. “We have a professional performing troupe as well as a children’s group attending and performing at various festivals in India and abroad.”

Breaking the Barriers

Though they had teething problems and had to face many obstacles for quite a number of years. As still people are not aware of the seriousness of dance as a profession and they are not exposed to the amount of good and scholarly work being done in the field of dance and art across the country and abroad. “But slowly with times and media and the internet, things are changing for the better and we are happy at least we are contributing little to the growth and promotion of our culture and classical dance forms in this area, even if it is accountable to a drop in the big ocean, but making a difference,” she says.

Soumyasri furthers that in the last thirty years, they had many challenges and obstacles as parents or the public, in general, did not appreciate much because of the preconceived notions about traditional careers and so-called jobs of prestigious stature. “Telling someone my daughter or son is pursuing dance as a career was not looked upon with dignity and also sometimes being ridiculed.” So for all of these reasons, Soumyasri along with the other artists in their city took the trouble of arranging workshops, talks, lectures, demonstrations, festivals, etc., so that the people get exposure. Now the scenario is promising and these career options are welcomed by a certain percentage of society. “Still a long way to go,” she feels.

Highlighting their professional qualities and values, she says that their foremost quality is giving serious training and very systematic and timely guidance. “And of course maintaining professionalism and trying to imbibe the same in our students whether children or adults who are pursuing performing arts at our centre.”

She adds that they give the opportunity to each and every student, creating a platform for them so that they gain confidence, “Creating a knowledgeable performers and artistes and sending our  students  for participation in competitions and also in festivals across the country and abroad too. These are our USPs,” she conveys.

The World is Her Stage

When asked that as an experienced professional, what would be her advice to the budding aspirants willing to enter the business world, Soumyasri says she is still learning even though she is in this field for more than 25 years now, but learning has no age limit. “I would advise everyone who wants to come in this field to never give up, there will be obstacles, but overcome with hard work and you will definitely reap benefits.” Consistency and maintaining quality are the key factors in any business venture.

On envisioning Devmudraa’s operations with the emerging technologies and automated tools that are revolutionizing the business world by enabling innovations, Soumyasri divulges that they have been already implementing many innovative methods and tools using technology in their institute for the last eight years much before the pandemic happened and the online mode of teaching took a front seat and many technologies and apps developed in the last three years.

“We have an audio-visual room and library, also our students are trained in the editing of sound and video apart from the performing aspects. We have our own Website, YouTube channel and other social media platforms and we are quite active and keep promoting our work and also inspire others to join this cause of preserving our heritage and culture,” she states.

Dance is Her Dramatic Expression

Recently in August 2022, they got a subscription to Teachmore, an online teaching platform. Through this app they can organize their lessons, teaching audio and videos and lesson notes will be shared. “Also any student from anywhere can get access to our courses at their convenient time because of recorded as well as live lessons. So we too are learning and growing!”

They had two international collaborations in the year 2020 when the whole world was in the lockdown,

• “Our lockdown dance video in Ode of Mother Earth which was prepared from the balconies, verandas, and homes of various students in their homes due to strict lockdown with minimal resources and praying for everyone’s well-being in the thick of the lockdown.” It was selected amongst the best dance videos on the occasion of World Dance Day in the lockdown by International Dance Council, UNESCO, Paris. It was selected as one of the best videos with limited resources and constraints of lockdown and was featured in their video festival online. Link: https://youtu.be/p2xdfpnY6Pw (Devmudraa channel); Youth, Dance & Video (time cue 15:27mts: https://youtu.be/5ttlooye4HE)
• Dance artists from across the world came together with an International Video project “INTERLINKING” curated by Bulgarian Directors by Eleven dance artists from across different affected parts of the World, representing India and based on the COVID Lockdown situation interpreting the MORSE code sound of their own city and country into a message “Hope. I was the one invited to participate from our country. Video Link: https://youtu.be/C4vlC7ftrfA,” she concludes.

The post V Soumyasri Pawar: Fostering Divinely Dancing Chords of Devmudraa appeared first on Insights Success.