For the past 15 years Savitri Naidoo has been teaching and celebrating Indian dance and culture in Newcastle.
Naidoo of Chakras Dance Academy only has a few tickets left to her upcoming Indian dance performance Confluences, on Saturday September 7, at Hunter Theatre (at Hunter School of Performing Arts in Broadmeadow).
Naidoo's dance studio in Mayfield offers classes to anyone who wants to learn about Indian dance. The studio's goal is to invest in the community through teaching projects and performances that reflect the true richness of India's artistic culture.
It's performed various productions, including Aladdin, Snow White and Cinderella, all in an Indian style.
"Last year we did a traditional Indian program with live music and proper Indian performance. This year we thought we would start collaborating and working with other students to experience other genres," Naidoo says. "This year has been for the students a year of experiencing confluence; it takes you on a journey."
This production has 120 performers and includes traditional Indian dance, folklore, Bollywood and even global modern styles including American hip hop.
Naidoo is South African Indian. She grew up in Cape Town and went on to teach dance for 35 years in South Africa. In Cape Town she was guided by South African ballet teacher and choreographer Dulcie Howes.
"I started off with ballet because there was no Indian dance," Naidoo says. "I didn't know about Indian dance except for Bollywood. We saw the Bollywood movies, then a classical Indian dancer came to Cape Town."
She went to India to study Bharatanatyam, a classical dance style.
"It is said that Bharatanatyam, the South Indian style, is even the mother art form of all dances," she says.
She grew up under apartheid regime, and it was only through creative dance and arts that people could socialise and connect. She finds dance is an international language.
"The arts were used as a medium to connect people, coloured, whites, blacks. Indians lived together, through dance we were able to connect," she says. "Living in South Africa there is that hunger to be together; here there isn't that urge."
When she described her childhood to her kids, who grew up in Australia, they never understood. She recalled seeing a ballet performance in South Africa. Her parents' permit from the police station was more important to have than the actual dance tickets. The desire to overcome that division spurred South Africa forward.
Dance has allowed her to work with many different types of people. For the past 15 years she's been sharing her cultural knowledge and experience in Newcastle.
"It's a small school, a very committed bunch of people that work together to aspire not only the passion but also the quality," Naidoo says. "Our students range from the age of 5 to 63. We have adults, the classical course, an exam course like ballet has grades, then we have the Bollywood and folk which is a more fun integrated, with lots of diverse people not necessarily Indian."
She said the local Indian community was growing. Before COVID they had a record of 3500 Indian families and since that time, it's at least doubled. She said the Indian community was very diverse, with the customs and language different in every state.
"Even for me teaching first-generation Indian kids, I don't know a lot of their customs," she says. "Every state speaks different languages and customs, it's been great learning all of this, why they learn that way."
