Today we’d like to introduce you to Alpana Kagal Jacob.
Hi Alpana, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My family immigrated to this country when I was 5 yrars old. Ever since I was young, my family maintained a strong sense of culture at home. Whether it was the delicious food cooked by my mother and grandmother’s, or the random Indian classical music concerts that were held at our house I was constantly nurtured by the Indian cultural arts. My Father was a physician, but had an affinity towards HIndustani classical music and my mother was an artist and constantly exposed us to both the visual and literary arts of India. When I was about 6 years old my mother enrolled me in Indian classical dance classes in Detroit, Michigan. I was definitely a dreamer and although I enjoyed being amongst all the dancers, I was not at all focused. A few years later my family had the opportunity to move to Texas, where I would find my inspiration with this beautiful ancient dance form. I will never forget when my parents took me to a dance concert performance by SMT. Revathi Satyu. She was so so incredibly beautiful and graceful and I literally asked my mother when and where her dance classes were and when I could enroll. That began my love affair with Bharatanatyam one of the oldest classical dance forms in India. My mother immediately enrolled me at the Arathi school of dance and I was so blessed to begin my training with my Guru Revathi Satyu. My mother drove me 45 minutes one way every Saturday from Denton to Richardson so that I could continue learning and growing under the gentle teachings of my Guru. We put together many productions and performed at many festivals and in 1984 I was presented by my teacher. The presentation was a solo debut and is called an Arangetram. An Arangetram is when the Guru introduces her student to the community as a full fledged solo performer, It was the beginning of my ongoing relationship with the arts. I began spending every summer studying dance and touring the United states, Europe and India with Dance and Theater companies. My teacher began training me to teach and that is where my love for this dance form further deepened. I began teaching for my teacher at the age of 20. I was in college studying to be a nurse, but wished I could spend all my waking and sleeping hours dreaming of dance, choreography, and theater. As I further developed as a dancer and teacher, I was invited to teach master classes at local universities. I also became a founding member of a local performance arts group called Indique. All along this beautiful journey with dance my most favorite place to be is in my dance classroom with my dance babies. I feel most at home with them nurturing them while they nurture me. It is an amazing feeling having the privilege to pass on this 1000 year old art form to the next generation with the hopes that one of these young people will have the desire to teach as well. I currently live iin Frisco texas and am greatly indebted to my Grandparents, parents, and Guru for inspiring me to do what I do for a living today. I am so lucky and blessed to wake up every morning and know that I absolutely LOVE what I do for a living!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My journey with dance has been relatively smooth. Their were 2 major struggles I would feel hindered my path on my journey. The first was Highschool. I was raised in Denton, Texas in the 1980″s. There were very few Indian families so when I was in school i would hide my Indian identitiy. So there were very few people that new that I learned Indian classical dance. In fact when I was in my Sophomore year of HIghschool I made it onto the Drill team and only one of the girls knew that I was trained in Indian classical dance. It had such an internal struggle with my identity until I was about 21 years old. Bharatanatyam was what made me feel the most myself, yet I hid it from almost everyone I came in touch with. It was a really difficult time for me.
The next struggle I had was when I was working as a nurse, teaching, performing and raising kids. My ex-husband was not the most supportive person when it came to my dance career. He began to discourage me from teaching and performing and in order to take care of my family life, I gave up many dance opportunities and I struggled quite a bit to balance the approval of my family and my love for Dance.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I love to choreograph! My love for choreography came to me when my teacher asked me to work on a piece for one of her classes. I listened to the music and before I knew it the movements just started appearing in my mind and then i transferred those movements to my body and my love affair with creating dance began. I now love to collaborate with different dance genres, music genres, and spoken word or poetry. I love mixing the arts, for instance bringing literature or paintings to life through movement. I am also very interested in helping people such as the elderly and special needs population with movement. What sets me apart from others is my energy, just when i think maybe i am exhausted I get my second , third, and fourth wind. My students and kids are constantly frustrated with the amount of energy I have.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
I would love to continue to grow through collaboration. Working with other cultures and finding a common way to move together, whether it is through music, literature or visual arts. I would love to have more open communications with artists from different cultures to see how we could collaborate!
