An idea picks the person, not the other way round: Dancer Mayuri Upadhya

Her journey with dance started at the age of six. She stresses that for her it is not just an art form, as the relationship with it is more internal, emotional, and spiritual. That it is the way she understands, communicates, and expresses herself - from body, voice, and imagination to design thinking.

Mayuri Upadhya, choreographer and dancer feel as one grows with time, there are many intertwined layers of what she/he wants and what the world wants of the person, yet, strangely, it all makes sense. "I started off as a performer, a dreamer, but today I am a doer, I persevere on an uncharted path with intuition, hard work, and by constantly refining my talent and skill," she tells.

Upadhya, who will be one the curators for the dance segment at the Serendipity Arts Festival to be held in Goa in December smiles, "I was born to create, and that I will continue to do. All the other variables will fall in place."

Adding that she is excited to bring world-class Indian acts to the festival, Upadhya assures the dance programming at the festival is a perfect mix of immersive, experimental, and inclusive.

"We have mythology musical with '18 Days'by Sharath Prabhat, new works by Madhavi Mudgal, and Ashley Lobo's Navdhara India Dance Theatre. We see Sita's point of view in Shruthi and Parshawanath Upadhye's 'Abha' and award-winning contemporary works by Surjit Nongmeikapam. Not to mention, the excellently curated street jam 'On The Move' on the penultimate night of the festival that brings the international street dance styles all under one roof."

She feels that there need to be more art festivals —not for the world to see us but for us to see the world.

Talking about her studio process and how she selects her themes (or how they 'come' to her), this dancer and choreographer states when one is an artiste, creativity trickles down to every part of the DNA. "Probably that is the reason there is seldom a dearth of ideas. I also believe that an idea picks the person or the channel and not the other way round."

Adding that for her there is a different intuitive process for every project, she says, "You can say my process is that I am not conscious of breaking dance patterns.

Dance is like a mold of clay that can constantly changes shapes — ones I want to play with, break and recreate."

Upadhya feels the country definitely needs more dance repertories. "Both repertories and their heads need to be nurtured. Companies can be adopted for a minimum period of five years to show their true potential. There can be a one-time corpus fund created to help basic financial challenges," says the dancer whose favorite form is Odissi. "There is nothing that beats it because it's so poetic, complex, and yet so effortless, she concludes.