HYDERABAD: “Move fast. Quick, quick, quick! Now slow down. Form a circle and make contact.
” We look at each other like a bunch of kindergarteners, absolutely perplexed at the instruction. Our first instinct is to connect the circle by holding hands but movement artiste Vividha Yadav isn’t on board, saying, “Think out of the box, everyone!” And that’s when the creativity flows out; we giggle to the person on our left and right, connecting index fingers, toes, elbows..
.well, this is just a smidge of Vividha’s Contact Improvisation and Movement Workshop, organised by Communities in 100 dance studio in Madhapur. And boy, it is a breath of fresh air right from the start.
As we 20 to 40-somethings, donning equally varied clothing styles, walk around the mirror-adorned studio, Vividha sits in a corner, folding her hands to a devotional song. Clearly, this is an art she respects immensely and wants to impact people with. A movement workshop, yes, so warmups, yes.
But not the boring ones you do at the gym. “Now, move your body like this to make circles in the air,” she says as she perfectly demonstrates. We all follow suit, looking like a bunch of squiggly lines and laughing at our poor stability, already feeling so comfortable with each other.
The next moment, we feel all pristine standing in a row and lifting one leg like ballerinas; it isn’t long before we feel ready to set the stage on fire like a bunch of Bollywood dancers in Karan Johar’s next movie. But we are there to push ourselves beyond defined boundaries of movement. We are put in pairs of two and one of us randomly moves our palms in front of the other’s eyes, directing them up, left, right, down and so on.
“Move your body in those directions and partners, do not break eye contact,” says Vividha, who makes us switch partners as soon as we get comfortable. But with each person, the exercise somehow pans out in an amazingly unique way, bringing out an array of personalities and emotions in the process. We learn that ah, we don’t always have to jibber-jabber to socialise! Indeed, the beauty of Vividha’s exercises, apart from each one being completely different, is her knack for improvisation.
The highlight of the workshop is when Vividha teaches us how to tell a story with movements. “Now, you are a performer, capable of communicating so much simply through your movements,” she says softly. At the end of the two-hour workshop, we aren’t tired; we want to move more and more, out of the ugly imaginary boxes we’ve been locked up in for years.
Aditi, an attendee, says, “I absolutely enjoyed this workshop! It just changed my perspectives and I feel so free and light after the movements.” “My whole idea is to create a space where you can look inside yourself, find your pent-up emotions and release them through movement without being self-conscious. This isn’t training but sharing.
..sharing a way you can break the pattern and express your emotions safely.
The workshop is a movement in itself,” says Vividha. In Vividha’s class, you ‘move’ to socialise and express emotions in a healthy way. And no, you don’t have to be an ace dancer or flexible acrobat.
But yes, there is one condition: You must walk in with the knowledge that, well, you are going to have so much fun!.
