RITAMBHARA SAHNI'S belly dance institute Mumbai - Belly dance

RITAMBHARA SAHNI’S

BATTLE WITH CHANGING THE VIEWPOINT OF BELLY DANCE AS AN ART AND ALSO WITH LEARNING THE ART OF BELLY DANCE.

IN RITAMBHARA SAHNI’S WORDS……

Ritambhara Sahni

RITAMBHARA SAHNI

Belly Dance became my childhood dream when my mom, my brother and I were watching this movie at home called ‘From Russia With Love’. A James Bond classic which had a belly dance scene in it. The movie is a MUST WATCH everyone cause of this belly dance scene so please do watch the movie or you tube this scene in the movie. Here is the link to the scene.

JAMES BOND MOVIE SCENE

My family use to love watching James Bond movies and so I also got hooked then. Another James Bond movie that had a belly dance scene was this movie ‘The Man W Bogarts Face’. However belly dance was portrayed in both these movies for the entertainment for Men. That actually dint bother me much, the moves made me go crazy. I was but of course mesmerized by the moves being a female and dancing professionally other free style dance forms even back then.

I expressed as a child to my mother who supported me and actually was the one who gave me several opportunities to perform professionally back then that I wanted to learn this beautiful art of belly dancing. But my mom like all other people back then said belly dancing surly looks great and beautiful as a dance art but is considered to be a dance form only for the entertainment for men. I was heartbroken but my heart would not agree that this dance form was considered bad and can only be for the entertainment for men.

With small arguments with my mother every now and then to learn this art I eventually gave up on convincing my mother but continued to secretly try the moves. My mother always supported me in learning each and every free style dance form and gave me several opportunities to perform. She was unaware like all others about what belly dance really is. She was also mesmerised by the moves and also wished it would not have been considered in this bad light.

As I would keep trying the moves secretly I did achieve some of them because of my strong roots in popping and locking and both these dance forms have similar elements. But some of the moves were just impossible.

My dream was a secret with me until Shakira came alive with her beautiful single ‘Wherever Whenever’ and changed the viewpoint of belly dance to a tremendous extent. I was then running my Institute Ritambhara Sahni’s Institute For the performing arts [RSIPA] which taught several free style dances. I started to get calls from people all over Mumbai enquiring if we teach belly dancing. My students kept asking again and again for me to teach them belly dancing. So something big had happened here, something what I always wanted, ---I wanted everyone to say that they wanted to learn belly dance. Because if people said so, they would not consider the dance form to be taboo. It was finally happening. The view point of belly dance was changing. Some people were reacting to it to be taboo but my people who understood the language of dance were all in to explore the art of belly dance. My dream finally was to become a reality.

My mother had expired way before a little after my childhood days. When I spoke to my father about the same my father completely encouraged me and said my mother would have also encouraged if she would have been alive as her viewpoint was only because she was unaware. With today’s changing viewpoint she would have been in complete favor of me belly dancing because my mother herself was fascinated with this dance art of belly dance. That’s when my father arranged for me to travel abroad to USA and Europe where we have our family as well to learn and explore this dance art.

I kept study this dance form making several trips abroad and continued to run my institute Ritambhara Sahni’s Institute For The Performing Arts[RSIPA] . Did hold short workshops and belly dance courses also in that time span I finally launched Belly dance Institute Mumbai by Ritambhara Sahni in 2005 and it has been going strong ever since and the viewpoint about belly dance I feel has almost reversed.

TO VIEW MY ARTICLE ON HOW I CREDITED SHAKIRA TO CHANGE THE VIEWPOINT OF BELLY DANCE ALL OVER THE WORLD IN HINDUSTAN TIMES ...CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINK.

Ritambhara Sahni - Hindustan Times Article...

Also my interview is featured in the Afternoon Newspaper Dispatch and courier on how the stigma attached to belly dance is now a thing of the past . Happy day of my life to see me featured about this in the newspapers. Click on the following link.

Ritamhara Sahni - interview in Afternoon News Despatch and Courrier