Finding Shiva : An Inner journey of the performative experience

After high school, I was not sure about whether I should pursue dance or a technical subject. Awaiting clarity, I spent many months considering my options.

While I was in the midst of this confusion, someone asked me, “What brings you closer to yourself?” I didn’t respond immediately, but in my mind the answer was clear. “Dance brings me closer to myself,” I thought. It was such an odd question, yet strangely it influenced a life decision. How can one be closer to or farther from oneself?

I knew that dance would begin to reveal something to me at some point in time, but I wasn’t sure of what this thing would be. The act of dancing holds something within it that I wanted to discover. What if I could imbibe my life with the clarity of thought, precision, control and simultaneous surrender that I am able to wield as a performer? Wouldn’t life change inexplicably for the better?

The applause bursts like rain clattering
From a cloud too heavy to hold,
My elation bathes me as sweat trickles
Down my forehead a moment before
It stings my eye to remind me to see,
They applaud the dance, not me.
If I were to fall prey, my dance entwined
With only moments of applause to remind
Of my days of yore. No never not.
Dance is me and yet not at all…
– Rukmini Vijayakumar