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Celebrity
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Sheema
Kirmani,
She moves in grace, she moves in beauty. She tilts her neck
and the face is lit up with a smile. Arms twirl like lotus-buds, about
to open up and ankle-bells jingle as she takes a step forward, creating
an intricate pattern of sound, rhythm and beauty. She fills the stage
with her presence. The performance is, however, not meant to spellbind
the audience. It is a celebration as well as an exploration of the
meaning of life, personal concerns and social issues.
For Sheema Kermani, dance is a passion as well as a social
cause. She teaches dancing and also acts for the stage and television.
She combines this with activism which includes mobile theatre in poor
localities of the city. Pakistan’s leading dancer with a social cause,
Sheema Kermani talks to Asif Farrukhi at her home in Karachi as the cool
evening sea-breeze brings relief after a humid day, and the darkening
city prepares itself for yet another strike the next day.
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| "Well, in my case," she pauses when asked if
dancers are born or made and how she came to take up dance as an art
form, "I was a fat child and I was not interested in sports and I
wouldn’t do any exercise," she says with a laugh. "My mother
thought that through dance I will do some exercise." She recalls
that "every year in the summer vacations we used to go to India and
I would see my maternal aunts learning dance and I liked it. But I never
thought about learning it. We were living in small towns, there was
nobody who could teach us and I never saw a dance performance. When we
shifted to Karachi, I was about 13 or 14 and really plump. My mother
took me to Ghanshyam’s. That’s where I had my first exposure to
dance. I started dancing and I enjoyed it but I never took it seriously.
During my childhood my parents did a lot to encourage art, music and
creativity. We used to do small plays for birthdays with a present for
the best play." She recalls that the house was filled with the
music of Beethoven and Bach. "From the age of seven, I learnt the
piano and for 10 years I studied Western classical music, passing the
exams from the Royal Academy of Music and when I became more conscious,
I thought that I should learn Eastern classical music." She trained
with Ghanshyam’s Dance Troupe in Karachi and later graduated from
Croydon College of Art in London.
"At that time I was actually more interested in art. I
wanted to be a painter." Much later when she saw dance
performances, she realized that, "this is what I want to do."
Sheema pirouetted her way to becoming a dancer. But she took many twists
and turns. In slow and careful words she talks about a personal crisis
and how she danced her way out of it. "I have never consciously
thought about this but now, after all these years, I realize that it
must have been in my subconscious that through dance you will be able to
recover your internal harmony. Actually, it did happen that way. It was
the only thing that brought me at a level of sanity. I regained my
dignity in my physical being through dance." |
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