Belonging from a strong performing-arts background, dancing has always been my favourite. Since the beginning of my childhood, I have been immersed into dancing different stylistic types of dancing like folk, classical and bollywood that too on diverse types of hip hop, carnatic and even fusion music. Starting my journey into dance from the age of 7, I can proudly say that I have accomplished some praise-worthy achievements in my art form.

– Completed my bachelor of arts degree in bharatanatyam (a classical dance) with an A+ from the oldest and most renowned university in India (Kerala)
– Represented India in the Duna Karneval Dance Festival in Budapest, Hungary at the age of 15 (being the smallest in the group) and won the public’s choice award for the best dancer.
– Was paid to dance for the International Neurology Summit inn Marriott Mumbai.
– Choreographed advanced bharatanatyam routines and basic bollywood routines
– Taught 70+ underprivileged kids dance to help them express themselves through this wonderful art as well!
– And many more!

As a result, I have now gained important proficiency in my field of interest. However, cherishing this art form as an individual wasn’t my only goal. Belonging from an Indian household, dance is sometimes looked upon as a “dirty” or an infamous art form that “good” kids need to stay from. This belief is shattered by sentiments. Not only this, but this belief was so popular amongst the community that dance was never taught as a subject in schools nor was its availability as an extracurricular was prominent enough, meaning, any individual wanting to learn dance had to go out of his/her way to simply learn and cherish this art without being judged. Even though the situations have gotten better now, the orthodox thinking of many old-schooled parents hasn’t changed, especially those from rural areas. This motivated me to leverage the opportunity of CAS to do something meaningful regarding this.

Fortunately, my school had 2 programs working towards a similar cause.

Community service program :- (5th-20th August 2023; only weekends)

The community service is a holistic development program dedicated towards educating and fostering extracurriculars such as sports, visual arts, dance and other activities. This program is specifically targeted towards the holistic development of the underprivileged kids, often belonging from poor financial and educational backgrounds. In the span of several weekends, we, as students, are given a choice to volunteer to teach a particular skill to these students to help them get their basics clear which shall help them grow further if that field matches their personal interest.

Here, as a dance enthusiast, I chose to volunteer for the dance component. Having had an experience of being a successful dance assistant the previou year, I was confident and committed to become the lead choreographer and operator this year because of which I submitted my achievements and requirements to apply for the lead spot. Graciously, I was appointed as the dance in-charge, main choreographer and lead. This made my intentions to work for this cause even stronger, simply because of the access to power and flexibility I had gained.

In the dance component, we basically had to teach upto 5-6 basic kid-friendly dance routines to these kids every weekend. However, the task wasn’t as easy as expected and this allowed me to learn and grow in various areas while developing crucial skills and learn profile attributes like time management, self-management, open-minded, reflective and thinker. (Learning outcomes discussed in detail below)

Bal Mela (24th Feb 2023) :-

Similar to community service, the Bal Mela was a single-day program where different holistic development activities were taught to underprivileged kids by our school students. However, Bal Mela’s goal wasn’t skill development in one particular region, rather it was the opportunity to let underprivileged kids explore and try out different forms of arts and sports, justifying the reason for it being only one day long. The Bal Mela program had a larger group of students and was an event committed to provide exposure rather than deep-skill enrichment.

Luckily, I was again the dance-incharge of this program and was asked to choreograph different songs to help students gain crucial experience to dance through different styles and types of music. However, this event also has its ups and downs, allowing me to learn and squeeze every bit of opportunity I could. In this event, I learned crucial self management and critical thinking skills. (learning outcomes discussed in detail below)

CAS engagement :-
Both of these activities/experiences allowed me to experience all aspects of CAS.Below is the description about the same.

Creativity :-
As simple as it is, dance is a creative form of art. The expression of the inner-self supported by suitable music and body movements is an art in itself. Especially, the choreography where I came up with unique, suitable and fun steps on the selected music track for higher engagement required extreme creativity and artistic intuition. My experience when embedded with my creativity to set particular steps at particular tempos on the track allowed my creativity to come into picture where I was successful in creating fun and easy to do choreographies. Thus, overall, in both these programs/experiences, the creativity to create with originality and independence allowed me to be creative, flexible and adaptable during the journey.

Action :-
Clearly, dance requires physical engagement. The timely movement of body parts with music requires great use of coordination and body synchronisation, helping one not only move his/her body to stimulate healthy functioning but also helping them enjoy exercising cardiological exercises with music. As known, dance is a great form of exercise for the heart as it allows one to anaerobically respirate and develop that respiration pathway. This fun way to exercise and maintain health was a part of action where physical involvement was done to promote a healthy lifestyle. This way I not only implemented this in my own life by dancing enthusiastically but also helped the underprivileged kids enjoy dancing while keenly moving their body in order to exercise and keep its functioning smooth.

Service :-
Since my skill set was particularly used to serve the underprivileged with no cost involved, I served and transferred my knowledge about the skill of dancing to these kids with the hope that dance will be a form of art cherished due to its physical, mental and social benefits rather than its associated orthodoxical prejudices. My intentions and actions to solve this authentic need allow me to serve these kids unconditionally and with all my heart, with the only intention of dance being accessible to everyone, including the underprivileged.

Learning outcomes :-

LO1 (learning outcome 1) :- Identify own strengths and develop areas of growth :-

Community service and bal mela :-
During the course of community service and bal mela, I identified a plethora of my strengths such as :-

1. Being able to largely communicate with different kinds of people including the school’s dance volunteers, the underprivileged kids as well as the support staff who was assigned to our auditorium to help us with the lighting and the music. The communication tone/language to communicate with such different types of group was different and my ability to talk to each of them with their level of understanding was a strength especially since I was able to communicate in their preferred languages (gujarati for the kids, english for the school volunteers and hindi for the support staff) with a speech delivery suitable to them and their understanding backgrounds. I was able to clearly and coherently voice out instructions, commands and requirements to everyone and was able to teach the dance steps using my body and my voice in a coherent and quick method. I also was successful in communicating the requirements I needed to execute the event such as louder music, brighter lights etc. to the support staff through non-verbal communication, arrangement of students to student volunteers through group discussions and expected distance to be maintained while dancing through a practical representation. This way I was able to communicate with such a large audience (about 70+ students) and build crucial emotional connections with them.

However, I also noticed some areas of growth.

1. Flexibility and adaptability :-
Community service :- During community service, there were times when the kids were not able to perform some of the technically challenging steps due to the high tempo of the music. This was a challenge where I noticed an area of growth for me where I had to learn to choreograph dances as per the kids abilities and dancing experience rather than mine. This was a challenge I had to fix immediately since the upcoming choreography which was set was much more challenging. Thus, I immediately had to reach out to the school volunteers to gain some crucial suggestions in the middle of the program where we collaboratively came up with simpler steps to fit the music and thus, continued the program. However, my lack of adaptability and flexibility turned out to be an area of growth where I hesitated and got overwhelmed due to the situation in front.

2. Spontenoinity :-
Bal Mela :- Being a dancer on stage, one must stay prepared to face challenges with music/light systems however I was not. Mid-performance there were unexpected changes and glitches in the track due to which I had to instantly improvise on-spot. I was able to come up with instant steps in the end, but again, I got frazzled for some time on stage. This showcases how I should be more prepared to take up end-moment technical difficulties.

LO2 (learning outcome 2) :- Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.

During the course of both the programs, multiple challenges were undertaken and new skills were developed.

Community service :-
1. Increasing music/dance difficulty :-
Day by day, challenges were undertaken to develop better and more refined skills during the process. As days passed, the tempo of the music track was increased and so was the difficulty of each dance step. The dances were not only made a little faster for the volunteers but also the kids. Even though the progression was slower, it was even difficult for me to teach the same dance in the time limit provided since the complexity increased. However, this challenge taught me the importance of time and self management and how one can be taught dances of various difficulties within the same amount of time, keeping different skill sets of the kids in mind,

2. On-spot warm up sessions :-
Since dancing is an exercise itself, it requires warm up; however famously, warm-ups in dance include a song in the background where the beats are utilised to arrange different types of stretching exercises as per their intensity. This included flexibility, adaptability, presence of mind and spontaneity and since I realised that these were my areas of growth, I took up the challenge of involving this component in the weekend practices so I could equip myself with adaptability as a skill.

Bal mela :-
1. On-spot dance choreographies to meet public demand :-
Similarly, in bal mela, instant choreographies were to be set because of the number of students and their varied preferences of songs to dance on. The music staff was indeed taking responses from the children and I, as a volunteer had to instantly work upon it as a choreography. This was a challenge that was taken in order to increase my spontaneity and adaptability.

LO3 (learning outcome 3) :- Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

Community service and bal mela :-
– Problem identification :- First and foremost, I outlined the problem that I wanted to solve which was the lack of access/awareness about dance and the debunking of orthodoxical prejudices linked to dances in rural areas. To do so, my target audience were the underprivileged kids that we were inviting. And thus, the problem was outlined and the course of action was to make dancing fun and accessible to these kids.
– Goal setting :- Since we had a couple of weekends for community service, I initially decided to teach 2 dance routines every weekend however it was an ambitious goal. For bal mela, the goal was to keep engaging, trending and famous songs and popular dances to eliminate the shyness associated with dancing.
– Song selection :- Song selection involved songs for both bal mela and community service where the songs were selected and then sent for approval to double check its friendliness with kids.
– Choreography :- Then those dances were choreographed by me and I was assisted by a few other volunteers.
– Delivery :- The delivery included teaching the kids the dance routine prepared even though the plan decided was different from the actual execution where kids did take some time to grasp the routine, later on, we were able to complete 2 dance routines per weekend and were successful in overcoming the challenge in front of us. For Bal mela, even though we had hiccups on the day, we managed to initiate our CAS experience effectively by using our collaboration skills.
– Performance :- In the end we had a cumulative performance where all of us combined performed in front of the entire school and showcased our journey of planning and initiating this CAS experience.

All of this combined showcased how I always used to organise myself and my task list before going into the event and communicated all the necessary details with the team and the kids whenever needed to smoothly lead this event.

LO4 (learning outcome 4) :- Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

– Community service :- The commitment and perseverance required for this CAS experience was to show up every weekend. After a long tiring week, weekends used to be my stress-reliever however to work on weekends as well was a task in itself. Even though it was difficult at first, I showed commitment and strong passionate sentiments to work for the cause I am deeply connected with; which is indeed dance and its surrounding taboos. Thus, even though I felt tired, burnt out and even exhausted at some points, I kept working on myself, my mistakes and the things I could improve to make this journey better for the volunteers and the kids I was in-charge of.

– Bal mela :- Even though Bal Mela was a one-day event, I showcased dedication and tenacity. This is because we had no breaks throughout the entire event. Huge batches of students used to join the dance component, dance for 20-mins with us under our guidance and immediately after that, another group of students was welcomed. This did not let us, the volunteers rest at all due to which I got exhausted and burnt out. However, due to my strong intentions in making dance accessible for everyone, I kept dancing and pushed through my limits to fulfil my CAS experience while providing an ever-lasting impact.


LO5 (learning outcome 5) :- Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

Community service :- Since the volunteers we had were huge in number, working collaboratively with them was essential. Initially, everyone had strong viewpoints and refused to adjust to a common ground, however with time and understanding, all of us worked collaboratively and shared the stage equally where each volunteer also got the limelight to teach the dance routine and perform the choreography in front of everyone. Moreover, we also switched positions to take care of the music department where volunteers would timely switch their roles and positions to promote fairness and an exposure to different roles in the program. This worked out and we were smoothly able to execute the event.

Bal mela :- In bal mela, at the time we were about 5 key volunteers who were in charge of dance. Due to the spontaneous changes in music, we all had to collaboratively come up with common steps we all were familiar with and quickly enact in order to be synchronised while we perform. For this, I often used to indicate the steps by staying in the centre or mildly shouting the step we had to perform after the current step. This allowed us to work collaboratively and in-sync with each other which gave birth to a good dance showcase.

LO7 (learning outcome 7) :- Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

Community service and Bal mela :-
The issue I was working on was debunking the wrongful tags on dancing in Indian society and how inaccessible it has become to kids these days. To do so, I recognized the ethics on my choices of initiating such an experience to teach kids from government schools who were underprivileged in nature. The issue affected me indirectly as dancing is very personal to me and anything associated with it would indirectly or directly affect me as the respect I carry for my art is huge. This issue made me feel a little ashamed about the modern generation and how easy it has become to forget that dance is a form of expression and is not associated with anything “dirty” or “shameful”. All in all, it made my recognize and consider how privileged I am to be in the position of learning this art form and being all to serve the access of the same to the underprivileged.

Conclusion + learner profile + skill development :-
All in all, CAS helped me build crucial learner profile attributes like communicator, open-minded, reflective and thinker while helping me develop my self management, time management and social skills.