Vridhi Mudgal - Dancers can take to competing and participating in reality TV Shows or be part of the performance pieces in movies (Dancer, India)

Instagram - @vridhiiiii

1. Tell us more about your background and journey

Growing up in a family of artists, with Bollywood in our blood, I have always been dancing around. I get my dancing gene from my father. In his time he used to sweep people off their feet with his moves - spending hours on end, practicing Jackie Chan stunts and Micheal Jackson moves!

I started performing very early on, since kindergarten, I have been the tiny dancer girl front and center in every school performance. The dance period in school was pretty much the only training I had up until 2nd grade. I joined kathak classes and dropped out after 3 months. 

I really wish I stuck to it. But training in a classical dance form at a young age gave me my roots. Later in 11th grade when I turned 16, I decided to get back to it so I enrolled in an after-school dance class, where they majorly focused on technique and strength training. 

I had to drop out of there as well after a couple of months because I had my 12th grade board exams. So I never really trained in one particular dance form. But now I'm a full time dancer and part time student, pirouette-ing my way through college and dance school.

2. When did you first decide you wanted to pursue dancing and how did you start?

The first time I ever REALLY thought about taking up dancing professionally was in 5th grade when I had a class presentation on "what do you want to be when you grow up?" and 10 year old Vridhi, went in her favourite outfit as a Choreographer and performed a short routine to "dance pe chance" so maybe I always knew. I never acted on it. 

Until I had to make a life decision, after graduating from school. It was a stressful one, seeing everyone around me having concrete plans to go to the best universities and me not knowing what to do. But after lots of research and counselling with my parents I rationalised and concluded that I wanted to dance and continue my studies as well!

When the country was under lockdown I started training full time with a dance company in Delhi and over time I used to try new courses with different schools all over the world! so really all my professional training has been through a screen, virtually and its been great so far, but nothing compares to training with a teacher and dancing at a studio!

I also took my passion to social media and shared my art with the world, and thankfully got a lot of love and appreciation for it. It only motivates me to keep creating and putting myself out there for the world to enjoy with me!


3. Who is your favourite dancer and why?

I have grown up idolising Shakti Mohan so my most favourite dancer has to be her. I'm lucky enough to call her my mentor now! SO it has rounded up for me.
I've always looked up to her since the time she came on D.I.D and the whole country has seen her grow into the woman she is.

When we get a chance to talk to her at the end of every month at my course in her dance school, not only does she actively listen to us about the issues we're facing while training or even generally she also gives us achievable concrete solutions to them.

She is so so easy to talk to, I feel right at home. She's a strong and powerful yet graceful and poised woman and I'd like to be all those things as I grow up too!
Other than her, I look up to, and get inspired from a lot of dancers on social media, all my teachers! even other dancers my age, there's really no limit to it! The community is full of beautiful, creative and talented people.


4. Can you throw some light on opportunities one gets as a dancer?

As the world is progressing, there's a lot of new opportunities coming up for dancers. As someone who is exploring her options to make a career in the field, I've realised that a major part of any of these jobs would be teaching!

One can take to the movies, and train to be a choreographer in the film industry.
Then there is always teaching at a dance company or starting your own. You major in one or various styles and teach them.

Another route is performing! Dancers can take to competing and participating in reality T.V SHOWS or be part of the performance pieces in movies. Sometimes dancers get recognised and star in music videos too! A lot of dancers stick to theatre if they're inclined towards performing.

As much joy as performing and teaching would give me, my goal is slightly different! A new opportunity for dancers in the psychological field has opened up
it's called Dance Movement Therapy!

(DMT) is the psychotherapeutic use of movement to promote emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration of the individual, for the purpose of improving health and well-being. Beneficial for both physical and mental health, dance therapy can be used for stress reduction, disease prevention, and mood management.

I'm studying to become a dance movement therapist. I want to dance my way to heal the world!


5. Is format training required or can one train themselves purely on the basis of talent?

Talent plays a major role in this field anyway! Anyone can dance, but not everyone can be a performer and a creator! A lot of people in our country start off with self training, I did too.

But I believe format training gives dancers an edge over everyone else for, multiple reasons:

• Having a mentor, learning from someone who knows what they're doing, is equivalent to having a teacher in school!
  How many doctors do we know who practice at reputed hospitals, without getting through med school? Did they pass out of med schools without a teacher? There is so much to learn in this art form, you can never know enough! and I believe self training wouldn't get you that knowledge.
  
  
• Dancing is a sport, we're athletes too, and one tiny injury can set us back multiple years or sometimes even lead to not dancing at all, so injury prevention is a must, there is a right and wrong way of technique training which one may not be able to pick without a teacher.
  
  
• Every dancer if they want to achieve to the best of their ability, needs to self train anyway! Every dancer has a different body and different perspective, which they can explore only outside of class. Format training gives you a concrete way to do that and gives you tools to explore your creativity!

6. What piece of advice would you like to give to future and aspiring artists?


I have a lot of footnotes in my dance journal for this, some of them are -

• know when to give yourself a break
• listen to your body! spend time understanding it before you start playing the field, If you jump right in, your strengths will get the best of you!
• if you don't get something right in your first attempt, don't give into the defeat, use it to get up and try again!

and the most important one!
BREATH AND HYDRATE!
you're using a lot of your mind and body!


7. Which is your favourite book and why?

I have never been able to enjoy reading, I admire those who can!

But if there's one thing I actively read is a dancer's blog called - theballetblog.com since I started training professionally only last year, I spend a lot of my time in technique training, and this blog provides me with a lot of insight for me to work with while I'm self training.

- Interviewed by - Soumya Bhayana