“I danced my first duo with my mo-ther, seven months pregnant”, says Israel Galvan, famous Spanish choreographer, Flamenco dancer and the author of this year's International Dance Day Message 2015. My story started in quite a similar way. I danced my first duo with my mother when she was pregnant with me. I have been dancing since the beginning of my existence. Growing up with a mother and a teacher like Sharmila Banerjee, one of the eminent dancers and choreographers of the country, I have been lucky to have met, learnt from and seen some of the greatest dancers and dance maestros and aspire to become like them someday.

At a young age, I was enthralled by dance; everything about it captivated me. However, I was never too keen to train hard or practice, but my mother was ever-uncompromising in that aspect. Soon I realised that dance was a form of communication. To communicate you needed a medium, a language. A dancer speaks or emotes with every fiber of muscle, breath of air and energy stored within the body. While it is true that every ordinary human being is in a dancing motion, the ordinary is transformed into an artistic value – an art form, with the appreciation of the accentuated body language. The various forms and styles of dance all around the world are then just different accents or dialects of the language, but ultimately it is the body that the dancer speaks with. Therefore, I feel that it is of utmost importance that a dancer, to reach the pinnacle of the artistic value of this art form, prepares and trains his communication tool – the body, with care and hard work.

At present, there are lots of young and aspiring dancers, who are making their mark in the dance arena of the country. However, I feel more emphasis should be given to training and preparing a proper body language for dance before venturing into the various existing styles. While a correctly executed dance movement is well appreciated, it is the perfected body language in any dance form that creates a breathtaking movement, which is able to twist a cord in our hearts, make us gasp in awe, speak out loud to us metaphorically. I urge all the young passionate dancers in the country, today on the occasion of International Dance Day, to pledge to work more relentlessly and uncompromisingly to build a proper body language that articulates our deepest emotions, thoughts, social issues, through the language that is stored in our muscles, breath and soul. Let us make an impact, through dancing: Let's speak through our bodies. 

The writer is an accomplished young dancer.