The best is yet to come
In conversation with Amy Rahman
Kavita Charanji
Amy Rahman is at her cre-ative best with Amy's Workshop which embraces a TV production house, boutique and dance school. Adept in Kathak, Manipuri and folk dance, she has 20 students (between 6-16) who come to her for classes. And she is optimistic about the new crop of dancers in the country. As she says, "The younger generation is on the rise in the dance firmament. If senior dancers don't let them come forward and give them a chance to perform on stage, what is their future?"Amy can clearly be a beacon for young dancers. Way back in 1977, she bagged the inter-district dance competition award for Kathak. A student of Chhayanat, she took the bold step of learning classical ballet from the National Academy of Performing Arts, North Korea in 1980. Why does she go for ballet? In her words, "Ballet is a very soft dance form. The geometrical lines of ballet along with delicate steps help the dancer to stabilise his or her dance technique." Amy has put her ballet training to good purpose. On her return from Korea, she experimented with a fusion of ballet and our indigenous folk dance. Choosing to use ballet in a Tagore dance drama, she chose 11 Tagore songs and poems and made a half hour love story called Sarthak Shapno for BTV. Tagore, she says was a big proponent of ballet. Apparently the great bard brought ballet teachers from different parts of the world to teach the dance form in Shantiniketan. In many dance dramas he used this art and successfully blended Manipuri, Java with Kathak. Though Amy originally joined Chhayanat to learn singing she showed so much promise in dance that her two gurus Laila Hassan and Ustad Kartik Singh encouraged her to go for this art form. Since her parents disapproved of her learning dance, she kept this fact under the wraps. Only later after she had won an award were her parents reconciled and pleased with her choice. On the TV production side, she has made some giant strides. Among her notable works are a children's programme for BTV called Ek Jhak Payra, a children's drama Saat Bhai Champa for Channel-i based on an old fairy tale and talk show Koto Katha for Baishakhi TV. Other works include a programme on Freedom Fighters for Baishakhi TV and an independently made children's programme for RTV. Recently, she has finished a folk dance drama called Shonai Madhab, based on a story from the Mymensingh Geetika and Tumi Probhater Shuktara for Baishakhi TV which brought together dance, poetry and songs commemorating Tagore's birth anniversary. Likewise for the same channel she did a children's programme, Brishti Porey Tapur Tupur, to introduce Tagore to children. Another innovative and ambitious project is to capture the lives of the Baul folk singers on camera. Towards this end, Amy is off to Kushtia to acquaint herself with their lifestyles. "The Bauls have a simple lifestyle and are happy with small things. They are natural performers and don't have to rehearse everyday," she says in conclusion.
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