As a child, Parshwanath S Upadhye went along with every whim of his mother, dutifully attending classes in Karate, Kalari, rangoli, dance and swimming in his native town of Belgaum, Karnataka. Though he would eventually ‘find his feet’ in Bharatanatyam, Parshwanath feels that all the other arts his mother made him learn have helped him immensely as well.
“My mother lived her dreams through me. Other than diving, I loved doing the rest of the things, because she used to make it sound like fun, and also personally did it,” says Upadhye, who spoke to MetroPlus when he was in Tiruchi recently for a two-day cultural outreach programme organised by Association of Bharatanatyam Artists of India (ABHAI) and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. “Participating in public speaking contests while in college helped me lose my stage fear quite early in life. I feel it also helped me in choreography and sometimes abhinaya, when you can refine your movements as you go on stage.”
A viable career
But while he basks in the recognition that is constantly being showered upon him, Upadhye admits that it was not an easy decision to settle on dance as a viable profession. “I wasted six years attempting competitive exams, before realising that classical dance could be my only profession,” he says. “There were very few examples of professional dancers those days. But it was those same soloists who encouraged me to take up Bharatanatyam full-time, because until then, my other courses were making me decline offers to perform abroad.”
Belgaum is known more for its association with Hindustani music than classical dance, says Upadhye. Trained in the Mysore style of Bharatanatyam by his guru Ravindra Sharma from the age of 8, Upadhye, now in his mid-30s, had his arangetram (formal stage debut) in 1996, and continued to work with his teacher until 2002.
“In the 1980s and ’90s, male dancers were quite few in number, but that has definitely changed today,” says Upadhye. Much of this is due to a change in attitude, he feels. “People have begun to realise that an expert dancer can have a stable career, and also diversify into teaching at a later stage.”
The more significant transformation has been with regard to misconceptions that learning dance would make boys effeminate. “Unfortunately, this still prevails in many ways. It’s the way society works — people make fun of dancers, and even the film industry, the major influence in India, portrays them in a comical or bad light. Apart from a few films, nobody ever makes a male dancer look like an amazing performer. They are shown as sexually ambivalent, or evil … somebody’s who is not ‘normal’ according to the filmmaker,” says Upadhye. “But your sexuality has nothing to do with dance. There are so many non-dancers who have a difference in sexual orientation. There’s nothing wrong with that. If dance gives you a channel for your feminine side, where’s the harm in that?”
Future plans
Besides continuing advanced training under dancer duo Kiran Subramanyam and Sandhya Kiran since 2002 at Rasika Academy of Performing Arts, in Bengaluru, Upadhye also runs his own school and dance company in the city.
In December, he is collaborating with his wife (and danseuse) Shruthi and Adithya PV on a dance programme centred around the female deity (Devi). “We are planning to present it in Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad, then tour the United States,” says Upadhye.
A residential ‘gurukulam’ style of dance school on the outskirts of Belgaum is yet another dream project that Upadhye hopes to complete one day.
“Balancing family duties with career is not easy. But luckily, we have a lot of solos, so at least one of us gets to spend time with our five-year-old son. We also have the help of Shruthi’s parents,” says Upadhye.
Would he wish his son to follow his footsteps? “I will definitely want my son to learn dance, not because I’m a dancer, but because I feel that teaching Indian dance and music is a very divine way of educating a human being,” he replies. “Most children in the city are sent to dance classes because their parents want them to be babysat for an hour, or for them to become fit. But I want to see dance and music becoming compulsory subjects in our education system. In the olden days, dance and music was taught in all types of schools.”
Staying in step
While technology helps him to share his expertise and interact with newer generations of learners, Upadhye dismisses the ‘selfie culture’ as one of the many distractions of electronic devices. “Sometimes people film themselves while learning dance, even though they don’t know the meaning of the movements,” he says. “And of course there will be copyright issues with videos being put up on platforms like YouTube. People just copy the music that you may have put in a lot of effort and money to develop. It has happened several times to me, but I don’t penalise anyone, because it’s ultimately useless,” says Upadhye, who conducts dance classes online through FaceBook Live.
It is important for performers to respect the audience, says the dancer. “We have to convey messages through dance, but very recently I have realised that you have to talk about your art too. There are hundreds of thoughts behind whatever we choreograph; when we introduce a production to an audience, speaking about it helps to explain the overall concepts better,” concludes Upadhye.
