Dancer Nayanika Vyas chronicles her journey from New Delhi’s bustling gallis to the stage lights of Manhattan
“I’d like to return at some point, hopefully in a number of years,” Nayanika sighs wistfully. Regardless of her a number of visits to India, the continuing Coronavirus pandemic has made her, like many others, homesick. However ask her what retains her going, and she or he offers you a similar reply she gave when she was 5 years outdated: dancing.
Born and introduced up in New Delhi, Nayanika’s mom’s curiosity in jazz and ballet led her into her first-class at The Danceworx. She stayed with the corporate for the following 14 years. It nearly grew to become her dwelling and fostered in her an unrelenting need to bounce.
“I used to be ten years outdated after I walked as much as my dad and mom and stated, ‘That is what I need to do! I need to develop into a dancer,” she laughs. A task within the ‘Kingdom of Dream’s Jhumroo’ at age 15 cemented the younger dancer’s future — being the youngest of the lot, she made an influence and, in flip, the manufacturing impacted her enormously.
With sights set overseas, Nayanika had her arms full, managing to clear her pre-board exams whereas compiling video auditions and making use of for a bunch of performing arts academies. Whereas her dream of attending New York College’s Tisch Faculty of the Arts didn’t materialise, she calls what adopted ‘pure future.’
“Only a few weeks after NYU fell via, Philadelphia’s ‘College of the Arts’ made a sexy, scholarship-inclusive supply. I used to be overjoyed,” she reminisces.
And so she jetted off, leaving India at 17 to pursue her dream in America, a land she had by no means visited. Struggles aplenty, being the one native Indian within the college, she credit her dad and mom for getting her via the hardest of instances.
“I used to be thrown right into a batch of 75, every extra gifted than the opposite. To say I used to be intimidated can be a gross understatement and at the start, I spent extra time enjoying catch-up than I did progressing!” she exclaims. But, Nayanika made her mark, lastly producing a Senior Thesis that built-in Bollywood dance and Bharatanatyam with up to date coaching to provide ‘A Tribute to Her Roots.’ The efficiency was the one one among its variety to get a standing ovation for each of its exhibits.
After all, adversity would not cease there: regardless of auditioning for months, Nayanika discovered no dance firm to affix, usually ignored because of her brief stature and darkish pores and skin. So she moved to New York Metropolis on a whim, now auditioning every single day earlier than discovering a house final September with Bloodline Dance Theatre.
Dream contract
And but, there was a vacuum — Nayanika was lacking dwelling. She says: “The Universe will need to have recognized,” touchdown her a contract with Ajna, a dance firm specialising in Indian dance, whereas additionally permitting her to develop into licensed as a instructing artiste in New York. That’s the place she sees her journey heading over the following few years.
“ I’d prefer to journey again to India quickly, now enriched by my adventures and learnings over these previous 4 years or so. I want to give Delhi’s younger dancers the chance to embrace their artwork as a occupation with out having to journey overseas,” she says. For now, Nayanika feels it’s time to payback to the neighborhood she nonetheless calls dwelling.
“In India, dance remains to be an unconventional profession selection. Having chosen the trail less-trodden myself, I need to give again to bounce and my Indian roots what it gave me.”
