♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Birds chirping ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Man speaks foreign language ] ♪♪ Minila: Dance as a whole is a big part of Indian culture.

And if you look at any festival, any celebration, any wedding, dance is such an important part of how we express, emote, and bring people together.

♪♪ Gijare: Dance is so deep rooted, just like music is for India.

So they kind of go hand in hand.

You kind of just grow up with it.

You're just around it.

You're surrounded by it.

Anything religious, non-religious, TV, Bollywood TV, Bollywood movies, it just all surrounds dance.

And it's just a very beautiful thing to see kind of everyone out and about dancing at all times, honestly.

♪♪ ♪♪ Totaram: Because dance is such a huge part of the life, it's really respected and it's, like, honored.

Dance is very spiritual.

And you'll keep your outfits and especially your bells and the ghungroos that you wear on your feet, you'll keep them by the altar.

And it's a way to be closer to God.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ India has a long history, and I think having the British there for so long has really impacted how people see dance.

You know, before the British came, dance was very much celebrated.

It was performed by males and females.

It was regarded in high esteem.

Things sort of changed when the British came.

And once they left, and India got independence, there was this national rebuilding of dance to kind of build back what they had lost.

And so, you know, depending on where you're from and what region or state that you're from, that dance is a really big part of your history and your culture and keeping those traditions alive.

♪♪ ♪♪ So, if you think about India, you almost want to think about it not as one country, but as a collection of different states.

And that's really what it was before the British came and it sort of became this one country.

And so each region or state had its own style of dance.

Really expressed the culture, the tradition, the history of that region specifically.

And some are classical styles.

There's eight that come from India, and there's a ton of folk dance styles, as well.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Man chanting ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Minila: So, kathakali comes from Kerala, which is in South India.

Kathakali is regarded as one of the classical Indian dance forms.

And what is distinct about kathakali off the top of your head, is the elaborate makeup, face masks, costumes, and headdresses.

♪♪ It's also part dance and part play or part mime.

So it's also drama and storytelling in addition to dance.

♪♪ So, the makeup in kathakali is codified.

So depending on what color and what style of makeup it is, you are a specific character, and the audience knows.

So certain colors, certain styles, you'll know if you're a hero or a villain or a goddess or a god or a demon.

So each kind of color and style of makeup has a character.

The characters are male and female, but traditionally, kathakali was performed by men and boys.

Now more women are doing it, but traditionally, it was a male dance.

♪♪ ♪♪ Kathakali is not so well received.

It's a long process of learning, but also just the preparation of the costumes and the makeup and all that.

You know, it takes several hours.

So it's longer to get prepared than to the time it takes to perform.

Partly, I think that's really deterring people to get away from that dance form.

[ Person chanting ] ♪♪ But there are many different mythological stories that are told through kathakali performances like they are told in other dance forms, also.

♪♪ ♪♪ Minila: No other Indian dance style has costumes like that.

And the same goes for the makeup and the very large and elaborate and heavy headdresses.

So it's a physical task, just putting on the costume and the makeup, in addition to then dancing and then having to use your face to tell the story.

♪♪ I think the way -- the preparation of the dancers, very young, in their early teens.

To say that, you know, a dancer in the West may be working very hard to perfect your steps.

But here, starting with the perfecting your body and of feeling that pain of being trained so early.

You know, it's not just the final dance performance, but so much happens behind the scene.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Man chanting ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ It takes many years of training.

I would say for all the classical styles, you're looking at a minimum of seven or eight years of intense, consistent training with one teacher or guru ideally, with dedicated self practice and learning from your teacher.

But these classical forms of dance require commitment.

It's not a hobby or something you do when you feel like it.

Like, you're deciding that this is what you're going to do, and you spend years learning it.

[ Man chanting in foreign language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Traditionally, it's a very rigorous training process, and it's young boys who start training.

They also learn forms of Indian martial arts, South Indian martial arts, because they need to be agile, flexible.

And, you know, traditionally, these boys would live at the school that they were training, and they would grow up there training in the style.

And it was sort of something they had decided to do from a very young age, from their family, or if they had generations of dancers before them.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ I would say most of the storytelling comes from the face.

And, so, kathakali dancers have very specific and rigorous eye exercises, lips, cheeks, and neck.

So, there's a lot of expression involved, and that's the most difficult part of this dance, is really having control over nuanced eye movements, eyebrows, cheek movements, lips, and your neck.

♪♪ [ Man singing in foreign language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ This was one of the dance forms that was less performed in temples.

It was more a form of entertainment.

So the stories came from, like, the Hindu religion, but it was performed as entertainment.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ So, the Vedas are the oldest kind of Hindu scriptures that are known.

In terms of dance specifically, the more important text is called the Natya Shastra, and that was written by Bharata Muni.

And it's almost like a text for performing arts, and it's considered the fifth Veda.

And that's where he describes many of the different classical dance styles, the mudras, the expressions that we see in classical dance today.

♪♪ ♪♪ And then over the years, when it was rebuilding time, dancers and scholars had to go back, look through archives.

The temples had carvings on them.

And so it's part of the history.

It's part of the architecture.

It's part of the culture.

It's part of the mythology.

Even if you look back to Hindu mythology, dance is woven in there.

So I think a lot of that just comes from referring back to those texts, as well.

♪♪ [ Man chanting ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Men conversing in foreign language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Totaram: Dance is a huge part of Indian culture.

We use it to celebrate everything.

It's a part of life.

With all the festivals and holidays, dance is incorporated into everything.

And you know, growing up, when you're younger and you want to get involved in an activity, dance is usually the one.

A lot of young girls and boys start with bharatnatyam and other dance styles to get started.

♪♪ I started learning bharatnatyam when I was around 6 or 7 just out of nowhere.

I had no connection to my culture.

I liked everything else but learning.

And my aunt put me in dance classes, and I just -- I fell in love with it.

I don't know.

I can't explain.

It was just wonderful.

With Indian classical styles, most people will start with one and will stick through that through most of their life, because it just requires so much training, and to become better, you really take so many years.

Each dancer has a graduation and they're called different things.

In bharatnatyam, we have an arangetram.

And to build up to your arangetram or graduation, it takes many, many years.

♪♪ So, bharatnatyam is extremely old, and it was originally performed as a temple dance, as a form of worship.

And it's been passed down through all the ages, and people have taught, learned from their gurus or respected elders.

It's passed on.

You attain a level of knowledge, and then you pass it on to someone else.

I was lucky enough to learn from my gurus, and then now I teach.

So, it often runs in families.

You know, if your mother learned, you'll learn, too.

♪♪ In any classical dance style, you do something called namaskar.

And it's a set of simple hand movements and foot movements, and it's pretty much just asking Mother Earth for blessings and permission to dance before you start.

And it's also done at the end of the dance, as well.

So we start with some simple hand movements.

So, this is a flower hand, called katakamukha.

And then you touch the floor.

You touch your eyes, touch the floor, and then over your head, and then you bow, to God, teacher, audience.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Bharatnatyam is from Southern India, specifically a state called Tamil Nadu.

And it's one of the oldest dance styles.

It's about 3,000 years old, and it's categorized by very sharp lines and movements, a lot of angular movements, and intricate footwork.

And they have a basic stance in bharatnatyam called aramandi where you stand with your feet in a "V," and you bend your knees.

And it really helps to show the the outfit, the pleats in the outfit, and it helps to show all the movements.

♪♪ ♪♪ So, there are four Vedas, and dance is depicted from them.

So you get the words, the sentiments or the feelings and emotions, you have abhinaya, which is the facial expressions, and then you have movement.

And put them together creates the classical dance.

And bharatnatyam, along with other classical dance styles, are about storytelling.

So with the four components from the Vedas, you get the bharatnatyam.

♪♪ [ Woman singing in foreign language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ The piece that was shown is called a jathi, which is a set of movements in the song.

And in a typical song, you'll usually have a jathi, and then you'll have a verse.

And a jathi is just pure steps.

You'll have movements.

You'll have a lot of sharp movements like this along with footwork, and incorporated into that, you'll have facial expressions, so you'll have a lot of eye movements, head movements from side to side.

♪♪ ♪♪ The difficulty in performing bharatnatyam is the training and the practice.

While it is an honor to learn and it's beautiful, it requires a lot, a lot of discipline.

And that can make it difficult.

So you really have to put in that work to get better.

♪♪ ♪♪ In classical dance, we use a lot of hand gestures or mudras.

Some of the movements, if never done before, can be really foreign to your body.

It's a lot of bending.

You're bending.

You're hitting your foot at the same time you're having to keep your hands straight.

It's very tiring, of course.

A lot of, like, lazy arms sometimes.

You really got to keep them shoulder-level.

So it can be taxing on the body.

♪♪ To excel in bharatnatyam, you really just have to have the passion to learn it.

I mean, like, physically, yes, you need the endurance to do it, and that can be built up, but you really have to love it and want to learn it.

Otherwise, it's difficult to stick with anything if you're not passionate about it.

♪♪ ♪♪ Dancing is -- I feel it's a way to be closer to, like, the divine.

Especially with, I mean, Indian classical dance, it's -- A lot of it is based in spirituality and Hindu mythology.

So it is, you know, interlaced with that.

But the movements are just so, like, beautiful, and it's just hard to not be infatuated with it.

I -- It's like life, you know?

[ Chuckles ] ♪♪ I think sometimes it's losing a little bit of its fervor from before, and that's why it's important for us to keep the culture alive.

A lot of the times now, you'll see styles are mixed together, which is really awesome, right?

It's awesome to see semi classical and different styles come about.

But it's also still important to keep the traditional style going.

And while it has dwindled a little bit, there is still an interest in it.

And as long as there's an interest, we'll keep pushing it forward.

[ Woman vocalizing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Car horn beeping ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Woman singing in foreign language ] ♪♪ Shakti: In India, dance came from the gods and was written in scripture.

[ Woman singing in foreign language ] So, the Vedas are sacred books, and in the Vedas, it describes how the gods dance.

So, Lord Shiva is our god of dance, and his movements are explained in the Vedas.

And from that text, we have all dance in India.

So the movements are very much about imitating the qualities of the gods.

I think that makes a big difference.

Aesthetically, why -- If it's a proud look in the dance, it's not a proud of the self.

It's a proud imitating the quality, the auspiciousness of the god, or the beauty is not like the physical beauty, but the beauty of the compassion of the god.

So all these characteristics sort of shine through the movements and show the stories of the gods.

♪♪ Classical dance comes from the temples.

So, all over India, women -- there was women called devadasis.

Deva means "god," and dasi means "servant of."

So they were servants of the lord.

And to please the lord, they would dance this dance.

♪♪ Food has to be offered.

There's what we call arti.

It's the lighting of a lamp and worshiping with fire.

Flowers, chanting, song, and, traditionally, dance would also be offered.

They would reenact stories of the divine abodes.

So that's where classical dance in India comes from, through this long, long lineage.

Like, Vedas are -- We don't even know how old they are.

So the dance developed continuously through lineage for thousands of years.

And in recent history, it was turned from a ritual dance that was done inside the temple to a performance dance on the stage.

♪♪ ♪♪ Getting made up is also somehow the ritual for the dancer, too.

It's, like, just to enjoy the adornment and, I don't know, honoring the art and all the things inside of it.

I like to just be very conscious of it and not -- I feel like if I rush into things, then I can be sloppy in my mind.

Like, my intention is not as clear.

So for me, if my heart is fixed in the right place, then everything will fall into -- Like, if I miss a step, that's not a problem.

But if my sentiment isn't there, then it's not going to move anyone.

♪♪ So, the ankle bells are very important, not just in kathak, but in several styles of classical Indian dance.

And that's because the rhythm that you are creating with your feet is to be heard.

It's not silent.

It's strong, it's powerful, and it itself is an instrument.

And so you have a musicality of the dancer without any music, you know?

And then when you pair that with the live musicians, it's just another layer of the complexity of the dance style.

♪♪ Shakti: It's the dance that brought me here, I mean to India.

I came to India to study odissi.

So I didn't understand that it's a life path.

It's really -- It's a dance, but it's so -- It's such a complex and deep world in the classical arts in India.

My love was odissi, which is from Orissa, and Rajasthani folk dance and music, which is obviously here in Rajasthan.

And then I brought -- made my school here and brought my guru at first and other teachers to come here and do workshop.

♪♪ ♪♪ The gap is so great between the Western, modern world and then trying to understand and fit your brain inside of this ancient dance form.

Odissi is thousands of years old.

So to make the mental gap, that mental leap and cultural leap, it's -- it's a big -- it's a big thing.

[ Woman singing in foreign language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Man speaking rhythmically in foreign language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ In classical Indian dance, we have two parts.

We have the storytelling part and pure dance.

So, pure dance is just ornamental movement without telling a story.

And then we have dance that tells a very specific story or talks about a specific god.

♪♪ [ Man singing in foreign language ] ♪♪ Minila: So, odissi comes from the Eastern state of Orissa.

The main posture in odissi is tribhangi, and, so, it's three parts of your body -- your head, your chest, and your bust.

You're in a turnout position with your knees bent.

And both the mudras, the facial expressions or abhinaya, and the footwork are all very important parts of odissi.

♪♪ In terms of just physical dance, odissi is done in a grounded position.

So your knees are bent, your toes and your knees are turned out, and you're more rooted in the earth.

♪♪ Even the costume of odissi, it's like a shorter blouse with more of, like, a sari sort of that has pleats.

So when you turn out your knees, you see the fan open up.

The headdress and the costume for odissi comes -- is more symbolic of where it comes from in Orissa.

♪♪ ♪♪ Because storytelling is such an important part of almost every classical Indian dance style, those stories are told through the use of our hands and our faces, as well as our bodies, of course.

♪♪ ♪♪ So, abhinaya refers to facial expressions, and there's nine main facial expressions -- fear... anger... wonder and surprise... peace and tranquility... ♪♪ ...disgust.

♪♪ ♪♪ Basically, your nine main feelings, you express through your eyes and your face.

And mudras are basically just hand gestures, or hastas.

And each of them -- There's a whole vocabulary of them.

And on their own, they're just a beautiful placement of your fingers.

But when you use them to tell a story, I could be writing a letter or opening a book or showing the sun.

They can also be used to express water.

So on their own, they might just be used to dance with no meaning.

But when they're part of a story, they then carry a meaning.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Man speaking rhythmically in foreign language ] [ Man singing in foreign language ] ♪♪ Odissi started off as a temple dance by devadasis and typically in worship of Vishnu or Lord Krishna, who they call in Orissa Lord Jagannath.

So odissi very much was connected to spirituality and religion.

♪♪ Shakti: There's a lot of moral message in it.

There's -- We act out stories from the Vedas.

So it's the wisdom that the gods have given us, we convey through the dance.

It's a vehicle to convey the wisdom of the Vedas, which we need more than ever in our day and age.

[ Men continue singing, speaking rhythmically ] ♪♪ They're very much around stories and mythology of Lord Krishna that are very commonly known across the country.

♪♪ Sometimes they're stories that are very familiar and near and dear to the audience.

Often, there's a lesson.

Often, there is some relatability of the emotions.

And often, it's just a way for the audience also to connect with their own spiritual beliefs, like, through the dance.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ I think traditionally, the dances were probably longer, 'cause you're telling longer, more detailed, epic stories.

And then now with today's day and today's audience, you're doing excerpts of those stories.

Maybe it's just one chapter or one story amongst a much larger story.

So you really have both, depending on the production and kind of the purpose.

♪♪ The duet, and that is ardhanarishwara, so, it's half Parvati and half Shiva, half the feminine principle and half the masculine principle, so just showing the different characteristics of divine masculine, divine feminine.

♪♪ ♪♪ Minila: The performer will get their movement from their guru or teacher, who in turn probably got it from their guru or teacher.

So it has in essence been handed down.

But every guru will have a slightly different style or a slightly different twist.

Their choreography may be similar, but there may be differences based on kind of who their teacher was.

And then, of course, as you pass down through generations, the form evolves a little, no matter how hard you try.

But basically, the repertoire is the same.

You know, step one is step one.

There might be a slight variation in how you do it, but if you're an odissi or bharatnatyam or kathak dancer, you're learning the same repertoire, even if it may be stylistically slightly different.

♪♪ ♪♪ Shakti: Sight of the dance is so much of the spiritual philosophy and spiritual culture that is a part of Indian arts.

♪♪ [ Woman singing in foreign language ] The history of odissi is that it's -- Only recently, it came out of the temple.

It was -- It's really a ritual dance that was done for thousands of years inside of the temples.

♪♪ [ Woman continues singing in foreign language ] ♪♪ Because of a change in opinion about dance, like, the value of dance, then India at one point actually outlawed temple dancing under British influence.

So it's like history sort of coming back.

♪♪ Gratitude almost feels like a small word for what I feel.

Somehow, devotion is mixed in there, and devotion brings about this feeling of surrender, too.

So that's what started the process, and that's what continues the process is the surrendering that happens inside of devotion, and faith that sort of links it all together.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Gijare: Dance in itself is a very, very big part of Indian culture, because I think we kind of grow up with it.

Right when we're young, when we're like 3, 4 years old, you know, we go to so many festivals, so many seasonal activities.

There's big -- big essentially parties for dance and essentially a group dance.

You'll see hundreds of people doing this one form of dance called garba, which happens during -- which is very popular in Gujarat, the state of Gujarat.

And there's also bhangra, which happens in the state of Punjab.

And so each kind of state has their own cultural dance within itself.

And I think everyone kind of grows up doing it within the community.

♪♪ [ Car horns honking ] ♪♪ Minila: People like dance in India as a general rule.

But would they want their daughter or son to become a dancer?

That depends on the family.

And I think we've evolved where it is more acceptable because it is an honorable profession, and people can be successful at it.

There's still going to be large parts of the population that feel like that's not an appropriate career choice for someone to make.

♪♪ Moral and the stigma associated with becoming a dancer.

I think some may also worry that, you know, their family or their child may not be able to make a living.

But I think the concern is more, "How will this look?

If everybody knows you're a dancer, is that a good look for our family?"

Like, it seems not.

♪♪ Before the British, it wasn't that way.

But I think post-British-rule in India, it definitely was more -- Like, you'll just find more females learning dance, more girls learning dance.

Ironically, so many of the great dance masters are male, that teach and that pass down.

I think that's also changing in this generation and will continue to change.

♪♪ Gijare: I think it's growing and becoming a more culturally accepted thing.

Dance has evolved into such a cultural phenomenon, and it can be a way for you to make a living, a career, and, you know, really showcase your culture on a much bigger platform.

So I think it's come a long way from the deep history of India, right?

Because dance has been around within India since way before the British days, back in the Mughal days.

And it's come across so far to where we are now in 2021.

And you see that happening, because it is seeping not just through India but all across the world.

And when you go around, most people are like, "Oh, yeah, I know what Bollywood is."

Even to, like, the littlest extent, people know it.

So it's really cool to see how that has expanded from religion to religion one way or another, even though it's not such a religious thing in the nutshell of it all.

♪♪ So, I've been studying dance since I think -- formally since I was 12, but I've been dancing since probably I was like 2.

So when I was younger, I would, you know, watch these Bollywood movies and these actors and actresses, and there were, like, crazy Bollywood dance numbers with like hundreds of dancers.

And we would just watch -- I mean, I think most Indian kids growing up watching this, they would just be glued to the TV, and we'd try to mimic all the dance moves and learn them all.

♪♪ -Oh.

-[ Laughs ] So, like, everything that we've grown up with and all those songs, we kind of know those movements by heart.

And then when it came to training, my parents were the ones who asked me, like, if I would want to take this as a career.

And within South Asian culture in general, it is not a very common thing, even now.

It's getting there, but it's not a very common thing to become an artist per se, right, whether it's a dancer or an actor or a painter or anything like that.

But I think it's becoming more and more accepted, because they're seeing a lot more of it.

So I think the training for me started at that point, and then I've been training since then, and you never really stop training after that, once you start really fully training.

♪♪ Just keep flat.

Everyone, square up your shoulders to the wall over here.

But you're gonna look to the left.

[ Speaking indistinctly ] To generalize it as much as possible, Bollywood in itself is a movie industry, right, just like Hollywood.

And Bollywood dance kind of started within, as Indian musicals, in a way, but for film.

And dance forms kind of evolved from there.

A lot of it kind of has rooted into Indian classical dancing, whether it's kathak, bharatnatyam, other types of Indian classical forms.

And then it has now evolved into a more diverse, ranging into hip-hop, contemporary, ballet, and it's a mix and mash of so many different dance cultures all in itself, with the music staying true to more Hindi-oriented lyrics or language base.

But it is also expanding and ever growing one day at a time.

♪♪ ♪♪ The Bollywood industry I think definitely plays a major role in just kind of keeping a lot of the new generation, younger generation coming in, right, 'cause they're always adapting to newer trends and all that kind of stuff.

So now a lot of times, if you see more current Bollywood music or Bollywood movies, there's a lot of Western influence, right?

And you'll see a lot more Western type of dancing.

And that has also, in one way or another, while I love the traditional stuff myself, it also has done a great job of pulling in more boys to dance, right?

'Cause now it's like, "Oh, there's hip-hop?

We can do hip-hop."

It's more "cool" looking, right?

♪♪ ♪♪ 'Cause if you look back in the history within Bollywood cinema and Bollywood movies, a lot of these actors that we are now very well known with or famous for us and coming generations after us, they all had their own very specific style.

So everyone has their little bit of signature.

And I think figuring out that signature is key to making you a really good dancer in the Bollywood realm, right, whether just your expressions or a lot of intricate movements.

It's kind of figuring out what best suits you and just, like, amplifying it to another level that, like, helps you connect to people and kind of bring them into you and make them want to dance with you, essentially.

[ Man singing in foreign language ] ♪♪ You go to all these Bollywood movies in India, and you're at the cinema, and you're in the theater, lot of times, the movie theater will turn into an entire dance party.

The entire auditorium will rise and start dancing, because they really love this actor or the song that's coming on.

And it's -- it's a phenomenon, honestly.

♪♪ This song is a little bit more geared towards the big celebration of Ganesh Festival in India, which is a very big religious holiday.

♪♪ ♪♪ Lord Ganesh, if you've noticed, if you've seen pictures of Lord Ganesh, it's the god with the elephant trunk and -- but it's also in the form of a man, as well.

So he's a lord protector in Hindu villages and things like that.

♪♪ There's a main portion.

You'll see us in a clump, and we're essentially moving our arms up and down.

Essentially, we're signifying the elephant trunk, right?

We're trying to show this figure, this entity in many different ways.

So there's a movement in here, as well, where we're going through and showing his big ears kind of moving through the wind.

And if you take a little bit and watch that and dissect it a little bit more, you'll notice that a lot of these gestures and poses that we're doing all have significant meaning towards this specific entity.

With the hand gesture, they're typically called mudras.

And mudras are very common in Indian classical forms.

♪♪ This is called [Speaks indistinctly] This shows the flute, right?

So a lot of times, you're talking about someone holding the flute or another god called Krishna holding the flute that you'll see often.

So there's variations to holding the flute.

And there's a moment where I was holding my hands like this with my arms underneath, this kind of signifying the little mouse that usually sits next to the Lord Ganesha.

And then if we're here, we're showing the little sweet treat that he usually eats all the time within his hand.

So there's a lot of different movements within that.

This one's very common that you see, alapadma, within Indian classical dances and a lot of Bollywood nowadays, too, right?

It's a very common mudra to have, but it also signifies, like, a flower in one way or another.

So you can kind of utilize it in very different ways throughout that choreography and many others, as well.

♪♪ I think it's fun for me because I feel like we're at a very interesting juncture within the world in, like, arts and all that kind of stuff, where I can be the bridge between the next generation or the generations to come, where it's like, "Look, I can do it.

There's three other people that I know can do it," and we can kind of bridge that gap, and we can pave the way for the ones to come after us.

It's always fun, because I think, especially within Indian classical dance, right, there's also even fewer men that do it, because it's often seen as being too feminine or anything like that.

And I think we're trying to break that boundary as much as possible, too, because everyone should be able to do any type of dance, whether it's girls doing masculine things or guys doing feminine things.

There should be no breakage point there, right?

And it's a fun adventure for me to be able to kind of break through that a little bit and show that it's acceptable, and you can still be yourself while you're doing all this kind of dancing.

♪♪ ♪♪ I think at some young age, maybe might have been 14, 15 or something, my mom, even just curiously after a couple years of saying, "You know, you're dancing," and all that, I think she just curiously said, "Why do you dance?

What does that mean to you?"

And I pretty much in one way or another, very young, but I was like, "Dance is essentially like oxygen," right, for me at that point.

And even, it feels like that, right?

It's very within me feels -- Everything feels right when I dance.

And it's a perfect way for me to just release any inner thoughts, inner emotions.

I think dance also just helps me bring out my personality even to another level, whereas I may not be able to do it on a regular basis, but with dance, it feels totally acceptable.

So it really provides a wonderful escape into just another world, and then you can come back and do everything else in life.

But then dance is always there to kind of help you guide -- guide you through life.

♪♪ ♪♪ It's important to pass on what you learn, especially with something like classical dance, like bharatnatyam.

It's a tradition to pass it on.

And to keep the culture alive, to keep the spirit alive, you really -- I feel like it's your duty to engage in teaching.

If you're going to learn, you have to pass it on.

♪♪ I love watching my students love classical dance, because sometimes, they're far and few to fall in love with it.

And when you see it, it's just like, "Oh, I got one."

Like, they really love it.

So it's wonderful.

♪♪ Gijare: I can't imagine a world where I don't dance, and I can't imagine a world without dance.

That would be a terrifying place, I think.

[ Laughs ] I think just because dance in itself brings so many people together, regardless of race, religion, background, anything, ethnicity, and so many different factors.

So many different people can come together because of dance.

And there's never any boundaries within dance, right?

You can cross so many different boundaries and connect with so many people where you normally may not.

And so I personally, genuinely hope dance never goes away.

And I don't think it ever will.

I think it'll only just keep growing, and hopefully it helps bring us together.

And for me, I hope I'm dancing till I can no longer physically move.

So hopefully till I'm like 70, 80, 90, whatever that is, I will keep dancing, even if it's just a little bit of movement.

We'll keep it going no matter what.

♪♪ ♪♪ Minila: When I'm practicing classical Indian dance, bharatnatyam or kathak, which are the two styles I'm trained in, I feel very present, like, in the moment.

♪♪ To be able to articulate the footwork, the posture, the arm movements, the hand gestures, the facial expressions, you have to be in the moment.

You can't really be thinking about anything else.

So for me, it's almost like a moving meditation.

♪♪ I feel very grounded, very strong, because I'm using my body and my face to express myself.

♪♪ ♪♪ And lastly, it makes me feel happy and connected to my history, my roots, and my culture.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪