Why Compete!!! Where does it get you ?

We are asked this lot of times, sometimes when people call……..Why Compete!!! What does it get you ? Do you compete because you are not confident…LOL NO…!

Here is why we have culture to compete, perform and do educational activities.

You heard that right, culture to compete is encouraged but not necessary. Our job is to inform you, tell you pros and cons. You do it or you do not it, there is no compromise in dance 🙂 You will still learn the same exact thing even if you do not compete and in same number of classes!

Competitions that we go to are : Healthy, Fun, technique focused/education field/ and lot of them come with really good $$, some are strictly amateur level while some are really good/tough/hard/strict/competitive on techniques and other rubrics. Read about rubrics!

Benefits of competing or even giving the best performance, if you were to give !

  1. You compete because it is not always for the win….! Some competitions will teach lot of other things that even education mainstream will not give you that exposure. It is about being there, feeling it, going through it that will give you the experience.
  2. It teaches healthy sportsmanship…You will still be friends, classmates whether or not you got the wins or lose!
  3. You compete so that you know what comes out of you, under that pressures!
  4. You compete so that when you lose, it does not bother you. It becomes fun!
  5. You learn to lose and still do it all over again & learn to never give up.
  6. You win it and still do it all over again; as if it never happened.
  7. You do competitions to understand life is not about competing. It is about giving your math exam after losing 5 different competitions and still get “A” without a cry. Oh, you bet, elites have gone through that a lot of times. Just like that you do not win. Times they have not won…and still had their exams later next week…Read About them here.
  8. You do competitions so that it gives you a refined audience who knows what you are doing and they have every right to comment or critic on your performance that you will not get in culture or festival audiences or even in those reality show competitions.
  9. You compete as if you are giving your post exam that is optional and fun.
  10. You compete so that when you are there, you do not lose it, no matter what happens on that day. It is the process that teaches you.
  11. You compete so that you learn to trust your trainings..from laughing, smiling, crying, moods or whatever that may come….even if you had worst day of your life.
  12. You compete so that when you get feedback (some competitions come with educational feedback), you do the fixes and do it all over again. It is the pressure under which things will happen that may surprise everybody!
  13. You compete so that the girl or boy you just met took your 2nd place or 1st place or 3rd place and that life is all about how best you did and for what. You get to judge yourself, understand + and – of it. And what could have got you that 1st place, if you would have prob listened to your teacher. Mind you, sometimes too much/over practice too causes failures!
  14. You compete so that you learn to balance everything. It is like a dart board, you hit or miss, you will play it again until the board or the dart is available!
  15. You compete to lead and take charge of your groups’ decision for changes that may happen or support as team member when required. It is not always about you.
  16. You learn to let go your ego and learn to respect others and you learn to never laugh at others. You know what it takes to be there. It is the process.
  17. You learn to get tired, exhausted under pressure and still do a flawless job just as trained without letting audience know of how bad your day was.
  18. Some competitions comes with perks/well most that we do…some $ that students earn for themselves and pay off their own fees and we do too, some give other benefits. It just depends on type of competitions.

Competing in competitions fosters not only healthy environment for sportsmanship between students, teachers, parents, and their own friends but also lot of times depending on rubrics or type of competitions, you will amaze yourself. We have had sweet surprises when our elites forgot their dance moves and made up something(surprise-their own genre steps!) and still got 1st place. Our teachers wondered that time as to where did this step come from and yet the genre suffices and gets them 1st place. Nobody knew till date if it was mistake! While there were days when we had “oppps” moments too then back to point 10. Finish the dance even if you lost that split of the second….get back to it, right away!

Do you know, not all our students compete. While not all our students perform either and yet they all learn the same exact dance/technique and routine. We did it from over a decade just in DFW of North Texas ….and will continue to do so :). 

This is the magic of training…And that is why whether or not you compete, there is no difference in what we teach you or these learning skills! With us, under Hetal Nagaraj, you get a guarantee of technique focused & creativity with all that straight background that we speak of…..Your child or yourself will learn same exact steps in same number of classes, no matter what the level is. See for yourself on our Youtube. The videos are clipped from master recording files of entire recording of non-stop classes.

Competing in educational competitions exposes you to educational field and not to entertainment field. Both are different and so are the dances. The entire choreography changes & techniques are far off. You will know when you will do it separately. We have them both under us for seperate category of dance requirements and they all are seperate. They are like two parallel lines that will NEVER meet or agree to each other. And for sure, that is something not to be compared or discussed. You compare when they have something in common!

Only Best Part about all the educational field dancers is that they fit very well and succeed in entertainment world of their genres because of strong knowledge, techniques/originality in them and the process of the trainings that they go through comes with its pros that no education or experience will teach. While entertainment dancers find extremely difficult to fit in educational field and related state of affairs. It becomes difficult for them to understand concepts, techniques and choreography too. Either way, this is just our experience whenever we had choreographers from entertainment field or direct industry who do not know this process of education. While who are we to argue when it comes to parallel lines. Those who have never done it will not know it!

Call NOW…Learn your life skills from sportsmanship to leadership skills with us and let dance allow you to beat the crap out of everything. 972 979 2559 is the right number. Our owner Hetal Nagaraj ( www.hetaln.com ) has a certifications in those too other than her trainings of 35 years background in Indian and Non-Indian Performing Arts. For those who do not know, she was trained exclusively under her teachers’ complete trainings, internships, guidance, mentorship, amongst the most mature and strongest leaderships and was launched by one in 1999.

Do you know ? In order to at-least get 1 win for 1 genre, you have to submit at-least 1 student or group or for audition for at-least 1 dance in 1 category/genre ? Do the math, how many of our students must have submitted per competition & per genre to create a record of 10+ years of history in all genres with technique based non-voting educational competitions 🙂 .

This just tells how much we love what we do, how we succeed in all we do…and why! try it, you will achieve it too. #trainingsrequired

Exclusive Copyrights by Reach Media for Hetal Joshi Nagaraj| Grace & Grooves | Grace Creations | Grace And Grooves | Nruthyakala Dance Academy | Mirchi Dance Academy | Kalasri Classical Dance Academy : 2012-2020.  

This material cannot not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. 

 

Recital 2018 – A Fusion Life of American Born Cultured Indian/Desi (ABCD)

fusionlife2018Recital 2018 concept and theme was decided in 2016 by Hetal Nagaraj.

The students in beginning of 2017 were actually taught dances like-wise throughout the year covering just the basics staying in their own category.

The whole idea got the shape in October 2017 when a rough playlist was made. A couple of these dances were also showcased in some of local talent competitions (September-October 2017), Diwali Mela(s)-(November 2017) at various places and other local festival stages. And a few of these had already won the awards too such as Pushpanjali, Madhurashtakam (Practice video-Selected for finals).

With all the influences of Non.Indian Culture in our Indian Dances, Dramas and thus our lives, we thought of showing how a life of our next generations that are brought up here. As it says, A=American, B=Born, C=Confused, D=Desis. But for our students of Grace And Grooves, C stands for CULTURED DESI, CLEAR FUNDAMENTALS, AND CRYSTAL CUT Diamond like TALENTS. Talents that can’t be beaten, Talents that can’t be judged with shallow mark-ups or untrained eyes and Talents that can’t be shadowed. 

Grace And Grooves is an Indian Dance School where students know difference between Bollywood And Indian Folk Dances, Bollywood And Bharatnatyam, Bharatnatyam and Indian Folk, Semi-Classical And Bharatnatyam too! 
So the recital program 2018 of Grace And Grooves had Pure Bharatnatyam that showcased the richness of Indian Classical Dances to Fun Indian Folk, Fusion Folk, Movie Types Semi-Classical Dances infused with & without Desi-HipHop to real semi-classical dances, Bollywood Modern-Contemporary Desi-HipHop Fusions and Folk And the dance dramas inspired from movies such as Bahubali, Veer Zaara & many more. 

Grace And Grooves successfully completed NAVARASA as per Natya Shashtra Guidelines in Bharatnatyam, Indian Folk Dances And Bollywood/Movie Dances in 2017-2018 year. All the dances are directed or choreographed exclusively by Hetal Nagaraj unless otherwise mentioned. Our Company Choreographers contributed with dances on Ramta Jogi by Mansi Chauhan and Ganesh Kavtuvam by Buvuneshwari Murugan.

We cannot forget Indian Movies that teaches us to dream big and live-happily ever after within our cultural boundaries—no matter where we go. Thus, our Special Feature of the evening & 90s Tribute was An Exclusive Tribute to Shahrukh Khan of Bollywood – SRK as we know him. It showcased non-stop 11 mins of SRK’s movie dances by around 20+ students and special appearances from Raghu K and Pavithra K. Videos will be shortly available.

Very first time in our recital, we had Guest Choreographers with Rang Barse-Holi Remix Tribute by Ritu Kharbanda and Bollywood Garba on Nagada Sang Dhol Baaje By Mishu Shashtri. Our Guest-Artist this time was a young artist – Arjun Iyer, Age 11 who played various notes starting from National Anthem of USA with music to notable Tamil Songs on Keyboard-Piano and Clarinet. Guest choreographer Ritu Kharbanda contributed with song of Om Shanti Om to our SRK non.stop dance extravaganza as her contribution to salute our King Khan with Harshita and Gargi.

All students, choreographers were acknowledged with participating medals and certificates during the show and later-during the classes. Below are the all the pictures, Enjoy And Don’t forget to sign up for our lessons : www.graceandgrooves.com

Phone : 972 979 2559

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/GraceAndGrooves

Twitter : https://twitter.com/GraceAndGrooves

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Bharatnatyam Pushpanjali. Concept, Choreography, Choreographer, Direction by Hetal Nagaraj. University Level Work.IMG_5966

Golden Era of Movies in various Languages : 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s From Semi-Classical Mujras To Desi Hip Hop Infused with various Indian Folk Dances.Concept,Choreography, Choreographer, Direction by Hetal Nagaraj.

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Recital 2018 Dance Dramas In Pure Bharatnatyam, Semi-Classical, Indian Folk And Bollywood/Movie Dances In Various Languages. Concept,Choreography, Choreographer, Direction by Hetal Nagaraj.

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Our tribute to Gujarati Sahitya @Recital 2018. Abhinaya covering Navarasa in Pure Bharatnatyam-Gujarati Dance Drama with Gujarati Classical Music. Concept, Choreography, Choreographer, Direction by Hetal Nagaraj.

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Recital 2018 Dances In Pure Bharatnatyam, Semi-Classical, Indian Folk And Bollywood/Movie Dances In Various Languages. Concept,Choreography, Choreographer, Direction by Hetal Nagaraj.

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Recital 2018 Dance Dramas In Pure Bharatnatyam, Semi-Classical, Indian Folk And Bollywood/Movie Dances In Various Languages. Concept,Choreography, Choreographer, Direction by Hetal Nagaraj.

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Golden Era of Movies in various Languages : 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s From Semi-Classical Mujras To Desi Hip Hop Infused with various Indian Folk Dances. Concept,Choreography, Choreographer, Direction by Hetal Nagaraj.

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We did Bahubali 1 and won several competitions in Solos & Groups. How can we not do Bahubali 2. Concept,Choreography, Choreographer, Direction by Hetal Nagaraj.

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A Special Tribute of 90s & Later was for our SRK – Shah rukh Khan. A 11 Minute Non.Stop Dancing By Around 20 Dancers featuring his movie dances with our choreography n his famous dance moves. Choreography, Choreographer Hetal Nagaraj. Concept & Direction by Hetal Nagaraj.

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A Special Tribute of 90s & Later was for our SRK – ShahRukh Khan. A 11 Minute Non.Stop Dancing By Around 20 Dancers featuring his movie dances with our choreography n his famous dance moves. Choreography, Choreographer Hetal Nagaraj. Concept & Direction by Hetal Nagaraj.

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A Special Tribute of 90s & Later was for our SRK – Shahrukh Khan. A 11 Minute Non.Stop Dancing By Around 20 Dancers featuring his movie dances with our choreography n his famous dance moves. Choreography, Choreographer Hetal Nagaraj. Om Shanti Om Title Song By Ritu Kharbanda. Concept & Direction by Hetal Nagaraj.

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Our Company Choreographers for Ganesh Kavtuvam By Bhuvaneshwari Murugan and Ramta Jogi By Mansi.

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Special Thanks :

  • Mishu Shastri-Dance, Ritu Kharbanda-Dance for their wonderful participation in Recital 2018, A Fusion Life of ABCD.
  • Arjun Iyer for Instruments.(Pic Added Jan-2,2020)
  • Kedar Golvelkar For Music on Guitar (Ankhon Mein Teri),
  • Bhagwat Pandya For Sound Technician Services.
Call NOW : 972 979 2559.

Exclusive Copyrights by Reach Media for Hetal Joshi Nagaraj| Grace & Grooves | Grace Creations | Grace And Grooves | Nruthyakala Dance Academy | Mirchi Dance Academy | Kalasri Classical Dance Academy : 2012-2020.  

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.  

Post Updated : March 15 2018, Jan 2 2020.