We recently connected with Aparna Kaushik and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Aparna, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I never had in my mind that I would be making my passion as my profession when I was growing up. and honestly I never planned to make this as my profession. It all happened very organically in 2005 when a parent approached me to teach dance for her daughter, and I agreed immediately, after that there was no looking back.

Aparna, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started my dance journey when I was 5 years old. And for sure I was extremely in love with this art. It is called “Bharatanatyam” One of the most beautiful dance forms, and I fell in love with this art form when my mom took me to see dance performances of legendary dancers. It was so mesmerizing, that every time I saw the dance as an audience, I would come home and mimic the dances in front of a mirror. We lived in a small town in the southern state of Karnataka.  It was very hard to find a teacher with this kind of special craft. But thanks to my Mom and Dad who took all the hard work to find a Dance teacher, They were a great source of guidance and inspiration for me to fall in love with the beautiful creative world.. Thank you for ever gratitude for all the knowledge she shared with me and encouraged me to pursue dance in my life. Then, after my high school I had to move to a different city. My parents started looking for Dance teacher again. And my mom found one of the finest dancers till date, Guru Vasundhara Doraiswamy, and Krupa Padke. Though I used to do yoga (not so regularly) Vasundhara Amma taught me how Yoga is the integral part of Bharatanatyam. She gave me an insight of how every pose has angles details. Krupa auntie showed me how dance reduces stress, and how creative we can get with an amazing imagination. I was older to comprehend with more analytical and critical thinking and I was truly enjoying my dance classes and I would look forward to my creative world. Just as I was getting deeper into my learning, I moved to the US, Sunnyvale California. I continued my dance education from Guru Indumati Ganesh. She taught me how to nurture this art. Just loving is not enough, but caring, nurturing, and giving your touch to this art is the most important part. I did my first Debut dance performance in 2003 in Bay Area, California. It was my dream come true. I was afloat in the air with joy. All I did was dream and practiced diligently every single day, and night. But my dearest husband Sundar made my dream come true. I was the mother of a 2 year old when I gave my Debut dance performance that is called “Rangapravesha” in Sanskrit.
It was very hard to balance the motherhood, responsibility of a wife and pursue my dream. We had moved from Sunnyvale to San Diego in 2001, so I used to fly to the Bay every 15 days with my new born baby, and stay at my dance teacher’s house, and practice any little time I would get in between nursing, diaper changing, napping and repeat.
I officially started my dance school in 2005 and named it after the Goddess of Shakti “Swapanthi Dance Academy” with just 1 student and today I have close to 100 students and 18 students who successfully did their Rangapravesha. with a live band, where my son Amogh is the lead classical singer.
Swapanthi Dance Academy is unique in its own way. I teach my younger students by narrating them a story and connecting it to the dance. They learn Indian Mythological stories and enact them as a role play. I teach them the theories of dance using pure Sanskrit verses from Natyashstra. Our school has annual day performances, and I like to make it a musical or a dance drama. My senior students write their dialogues and I help them choreograph dances for the music part.
I invite guest teachers from India to name some, Guru Radhika Nandakumar, Guru Nirupama Rajendraand conduct workshops with unique dance movements that are taught by maestros of Bharatanatyam, who have done great research work on Natya Shastras.
As far as the problems, of course there are politics, biased opinions, and many more. This is true for every profession. But if we have the will, passion, determination, no one can stop us from moving on from these hurdles and becoming successful.
Swapanthi Dance academy provides Bharatanatyam classes for all age groups – from age 4 to adults and I teach them with lots of love and passion. I am very proud that I am capable of sharing my knowledge to my students who come from diverse cultures.
To master this craft, one life is not enough, it needs many more. That’s how wide and deep the knowledge of this art form goes. The more you dig, the more you uncover which is the best thing about learning.
My biggest advice to everybody is, don’t give up when things start to fall apart. The Universe does it for a reason, so just keep doing what you truly love, and the Universe will work with you and help you to fulfill your dreams.

I bow my head in humbleness to all my Gurus who gave me so much love and nurtured me and made me who I am today.
so much gratitude to my parents, my husband, my son who always encourage me to follow my passion and stand with me like a pillar of support.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding of being an artist is creating new work of art, choreographing, making mistakes and recreating the dance. The best part is, I myself would have choreographed a piece and when I return to the same music, I improvise the same dance and make it better. So each time I revisit my choreography I get to improvise my version. The space this universe has given to be creative is infinite.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

To become resilient is very hard especially when you are in the creative world for many obvious reasons. First of all we are trying to carve a niche and sell ourselves by proving again and again that we are one of the finest artists. Then there is so much competition and politics in the art field. I have been proving time and again to the community that I am one of the hard workers and can deliver a quality craft. As I mentioned earlier, I had to change many dance teachers because of me moving from one city to another, from one country to another. I had to adapt each teacher’s style, methodology, philosophy and many more. That slowed down my learning . But nothing changed my mind. I was focused and told myself come what may, I will keep working towards my goal and dream.
As a community or organization, we should support our contemporaries and give chance for the local artists to perform, and showcase their craft, apart from bringing artists from around the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.swapanthi.com
• Instagram: swapanthidance
• Facebook: Aparna Prabhakar
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@aparnas830?si=GYft9voFekumOlve
• Other: Other channel with more videos: https://youtube.com/@sundaramnagaraj5264?si=QdZKfN3fnqwU2ptl

Image Credits
image credits Sundar Katikeyan – sundarclicks