The Faiz Ghar Foundation has started classical dance classes – ‘Empowering Movement’ – for children and adults. Renowned dancer Nighat Chaodhry is conducting classes and will teach dance to children and adults on Wednesdays and Fridays, respectively. The first session started on Wednesday (for kids) and on Friday (for adults).

In the kids’ class, there were three participants, all girls. In this session, Nighat seemed to emphasise more on the freedom of movement instead of empowerment of movement. She kept on instructing kids for different movements; step, turn, close, shape etc., on basic drum beat. The girls followed her and enjoyed the session.

Nighat Chaodhry talked to Dawn about her experience and plans for teaching dance. She said: “This class is going to be the amalgam of modern and classic dance. I’m focusing on the joy with dance while teaching kids. It is very difficult to teach kathak to kids without understanding the importance of joy and the element of excitement in the learning process. I start with basic movements, then I work with the poems that I have written myself for children for grabbing their interest, then I start adding basic kathak bol and they start learning a difficult genre of performing art without getting bored.

“Poems are for the gratitude of the children and I really enjoy when they shift from basic movements to kathak without even knowing.”

She shared her journey to be a dance teacher, “I’ve been taking experimental dance classes for teaching dance to youngsters at my institute from quite a time and I think now it’s time to start such a thing publicly. I’ve started teaching dance at the Lahore Grammar School (LGS) as well. It is a very good experience and I have received very good feedback. Children are excited about their dance class and they really enjoy it. I have not just implemented the process of learning as it is but I have done a lot of work on it. I have studied the child-behaviour and developed modern techniques to make things work. I’ve taken help from my teacher Tripura Kashyap from India, who guided me to understand the notion ‘Creative Dance Play’ for teaching dance. I’ve read books like ‘My body, My Wisdom’ for logic building in dance lessons.”

She said: “Dance is the art of feeling yourself and I teach dance for the coordination between body, brain and soul. This releases the stress, balances out the female and male energies and makes you able to use your right and left brain effectively.

“I chose the title ‘Empowering Movement’ for the dance classes as dance is the power of heart that is transferred to the movement. It is pure movement and you start healing through emotional control. Emotional control is the dire need of the hour, especially in Pakistan.”

She also said she encouraged women to learn dance as it was the stylised movement of discipline that helps them to have self-confidence. It increases their trust in themselves. Dance has an important role in personality development. It gives you confidence when you are all alone and in team as well.

She said there should be more social acceptance for performing arts in society. She said, “I have removed all the Hindu labels from kathak in my dance classes. How can an art form be Muslim or Hindu? It is the energy of God and more universal than people think it is. You cannot divide the energy of God and so shouldn’t dance or any art form be labelled.”

The event coordinator at Faiz Ghar, Ms Faiza said many elite schools have now started dance classes but here children and adults can come and learn to dance for free.

She said there are many people who really wish to learn to dance but there is some social lag which is the hurdle for them. I think people should come and participate in such activities for their personality development.