Dancing Passion in Words OR Bio Dancing Data

I was asked to write my bio-data because of the Workshop I'll be conducting. And this is how they do it here...

Raquel Lemos is a Portuguese Dance Lover, Teacher and Performer who is now in India working as a volunteer for Lalita Ubhayaker Foundation for the Arts.
Raquel was born in a family that shares the passion for Dance. Since early age, being the daughter of a Cape-verdean (African) father and a Brazilian mother, Raquel started dancing as a pass-time, a hobbie and a way of expression, as dance was an essential part of her family’s life.

While as a child she attended Ballet classes, from the age of 12 she started dancing Hip Hop. At 15, she was very active in the world of Fitness and started receiving training in Dance Monitoring. By the age of 16 she was conducting Hip Hop & Cardio-Funk classes both to Children and Adults on a regular basis. It was the beginning of her proficiency in dance.

During High-School Raquel got involved in a Theatre Group, which gave her a different insight into performing arts and stage creations. Her studies led her to do a college degree in Communication & Culture, but her life-time passion kept calling for her dedication.

Having contacted with the Latin Dance World, the community quickly and enthusiastically embraced her as a fast learner and a dancer from the heart. Few months later she was invited to become a dancer for Sabor Tropical Dance Company, which gave her personal training on the rhythms, moves and techniques of dances like Salsa, Cha Cha Cha, Merengue among others. She also received private lessons from the best Dance Masters in Portugal and overseas in the areas of Salsa, Zouk and other Latin and African dances.

With her dance company, for 3 years Raquel Lemos travelled Portugal giving classes, workshops and animations in many sorts of events and venues, having performed in the most notorious Latin dance congresses in the country including some TV shows. During this period she created, together with a dance couple, an original unprecedented methodology for the teaching of Zouk (couple dance style original from former Portuguese colonies in Africa and the French Antilles), which is now being used by many masters a little bit all over the country.

For the following years, she took training and traineeship in Show Production and contacted with some of the best practices in Hall and Cultural Management. In 2006, as she started her professional career as a Communication and Events Manager at the biggest private bank in Portugal, her time to teach and perform became limited. But as she took executive post-graduations in Events Management and Business Management, she still managed to use her spare evenings to perfection and diversify her dance skills, having attended several courses and regular classes in Sevillanas, Flamenco and Tango.

Raquel is nowadays an accomplished and multi-style dancer who does occasional performances and workshops under request. During her stay in India where she came to do volunteer work, she performed four times already, mostly for clubs and associations like Ashvasan, and she’s taking classes in Odissi classical Dance. Raquel Lemos loves plastic and performing arts, and she has long decided to take up Art and Culture as a producer and a managing facilitator rather then as an artist. It is in this scope that she joined Mrs. Lalita Ubhayaker in her endeavours in Smriti-Nandan Cultural Centre, Yuva Sangeet Utsav and Ashvasan Foundation. She is now invited to do a recollection of all Dances she learned throughout her life and present a World Dances Workshop for Children and Adults at Smriti-Nandan.

World Dances Workshop

Dear friends,

During the month of November, I am conducting a WORLD DANCES WORKSHOP at my workplace, Smriti-Nandan Cultural Centre.

World Dances Workshop will be basically a practical overview of the rythms, dance styles, moves and some choreographies from a little bit all over the world: from Flamenco to Samba, from Hip Hop to Rumba, from Salsa to African Tribal, passing through many others... it will be a fun, healthy, learning and interactive cultural experience!

The level of difficulty is adaptable to each student, and in the end everyone who wants will participate of an open performance. The workshop will take place on saturdays, and the programme will be as follows:

WORLD DANCES WORKSHOP

A Journey through the Rythms and Dances of 3 Continents

By: Raquel Lemos, Portuguese Dance Lover, Teacher and Performer

Saturday, Nov. 1st '08: SPANISH

Saturday, Nov. 8th '08: LATIN-AMERICAN

Saturday, Nov. 15th '08: BRAZILIAN & AFRICAN

Saturday, Nov. 22nd '08: NORTH-AMERICAN

* Children: 2pm - 3.15 pm * Adults: 3.15 pm to 4.45 pm

* No special shoes or attire are demanded for the classes, you should just feel comfortable and in the mood for DANCE :).

Venue: Smriti-Nandan Cultural Centre www.smritinandan.org

Map: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=109499249516994058062.0004475e089e952955d63&z=15

'Not Bad' and the Temple City

“Not bad” – many say to my travelling.
“En fait” (comme diraient les français), I’ve been travelling quite a lot within South India and I feel happy and realized because of that.
Staying in Bangalore for the weekends is almost depressing – this city is too busy and too stressful.

I hadn’t travelled since August 24th. Too long I know... But that’s when I went to Hampi... :
Hampi (in the same state as the recently renamed Bengaluru – Karnataka) was an amazing experience.
The momentum is gone though... A month and a half has gone now without me telling you anything about it, so I won’t come on to many details.
... So much has been happening that I haven't been managing to 'stop' living to actually tell my friends and family about life :) Apologize me for that.
So 'here comes the sun... txu ru ru ru... here comes the sun... I say: It's alright txu ru ru ru ru ru ru........."

Hampi is the place in India that I visited where SCALE is more obvious and striking.
You’re driven past dozens of temples through majestic piles of round rocks that only an Olympic God could have disposed in such a wonderful way over each other.
You reach peeks where the view invites you to meditate as your eyes get lost in a horizon measuring 360º. The air thickens but feels purer and the hot rocks burn your feet while you jump your way to the promise of an even greater landscape.
At the temples, they put red ink marks on your forehead as you visit and honor the God to which it is dedicated – the mark on your forehead signifies that you’ve been blessed for paying visit to this holly place. You’re invited to leave donations if you want, and also in some places you can buy sweets inside - especially when the God represented is known to like sweets in Hindu Philosophy (like Ganesha, the elephant faced young man).

Hampi is there where on one side of the river, you can find guest-houses, eat meat, drink alcohol… and on the other one, you can’t.
There where you find the smiling same children wanting to take pictures with you anywhere you go.
There where you have to take your shoes off, roll up your trousers, and walk through stopped waters and 'unidentified' mud until you reach the boat that will bring you to the other shore (only until 6 pm!).
There where shopping and sleeping is cheap.
There where you go up hundreds of stairs up a mountain to reach Monkey Temple and find it more than worth it, and then spend hours just amazing at the rocky greeny orangy never-ending landscape... and probably find hardly any monkeys. Others say that they’ve seen dozens of monkeys there, some that they were even followed by them: don’t lose hope! ;)
There where you see how society worked in the East much before any Romans civilized our global village or our Western Jesus started preaching.
(By the way, did you know that Jesus Christ spent more than a decade of his existence in India? – “e esta, hein?”).
There where temples are made out of rock – sometimes you can hardly disguise them in the horizon as they melt into the natural rock mountains.
There where you take sun baths in a deserted lake surronded by the huge round and polished rocks Hampi is made of.
There where you bargain until the end and have five drivers (at a time! :P) making you promise not to forget them - as in any touristic place in South India, actually.

Hadn’t seen old temples as yet. Here you have one at each corner, differently shaped, beautifully carved both on the inside and on the outside.
So so hot! If you go do book a full-day rickshaw to drive you around.
Gonçalo, Me, Jacky, Maria and Ahmed left out of Hampi wanting to come back.
We didn’t know what was expecting us though.

On the train back I lived my biggest challenge in India: but I’ll spare you the details and tell you only that we had literally no seats on a 1000 people train and occupied the worse 2 square meters in Sleeper class.
Having overcome that and its ‘nuances’ in a 10 hour train trip in India (and still avoiding any specifications as they tend to disgust listeners), I feel ready to sleep almost anywhere, with almost any discomfort, smell, ‘company’ or hygiene level.

'Tenho dito.'

Sonnet and Acrostics - Gal Raquel Lemos

When a couple of weeks ago you heard from your mentor: "We're so glad to have you as part of this family"...

... And after lunchtime yesterday you've heard from her husband: "You know you're like a child to us"...

... When in the afternoon one of the senior committee members of the senior citizen welfare organization you work for ('Ashvasan') comes to you with such a 'gift' to be published on the foundation's newsletter...

... Then you are just thankfull, emotioned and feeling gratified, and any little trouble is automatically erased (again life is answering the slightest of my feelings of doubt with no delay)...

... And you just know you have to share it with your loved ones.

I had no words. I just cried and cried while she read it out loud.....................

SONNET & ACROSTICS

GAL RAQUEL LEMOS

Glamour and youth entered Ashvasan with your arrival
Amidst all of us veterans
Lofty, loving thoughts of the young will be incorporated with your presence
Robust and radiant your looks and your dancing ability immaculate
Always a smile on your face
Quietly you accomplish your work to perfection
Under the protective canopy of Ashvasan
Energizing your activities and experiences
Lasting love and affection, we shower on you
Loving tales of Portugal and its life there you’ve told us
Eager we are to learn more about your country
Marvel, we do at your ability to learn and absorb
Older people like us welcome you in our midst
Sweet and simple person like you can definitely teach us a thing or two

By Indu Subramaniam
24.09.08

* 'GAL' stands for 'Girl' (american slang/ accent)

What is it about Art that...?

What is about ART that moves so many? Artists, aspiring artists, art promoters, art lovers (so called 'rasikas' in India), creatives, donors, investors, even occasional appreciators...

My mentor has been telling me about it... And I've been thinking... And it makes sense. I guess enough to finally have some understanding on why I myself wanna nurture Art throughout my life and - at least middle term most surely - devote myself professionally to it.

In this scope, allow me to refer you to the words I wrote for my mentor's speech yesterday, after another of many inspiring/ profoundly orienting talks. Contains also some insight into the concept of the space that I work in - www.smritinandan.org (please bear in mind that it's a non-profit organization, an essencially family funded hall); also beware of the spirit of this 'un-aged 83 springs' person of reference for whom I work...

Friends, Rasikas,

Be very welcome to this journey through the evolution of Kathak Dance, by Dr. Vaibhavi Joshipura.

I am very happy to see such a gathering of artists and art lovers to see Vaibhavi’s programme. I am sure I speak in the name of both of us if I say we’re very honoured to have you all here this evening.
Because --- you see --- rasikas can’t be without artists and art itself would lack its purpose if there were no rasikas. But for an artist it is something even more appreciated to have fellow artists as expectators; to have the chance to perform also for actual artists, as will happen here today, is something very rare and valuable. We think this should happen more often, I mean --- having artists supporting each other, so we are very thankful for your presence today.

This space where we’re sitting, Smriti Nandan Cultural Centre, has been created with that exact purpose: we see it as a small intimate place that artists should regard as their own, a space for artists and rasikas to meet, and a space for experimentation like the programme happening here this evening. I will be circulating the Membership form where you can see the kind of programmes we have been presenting bearing this concept in mind.

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate all these people who are here today – NAME, NAME, NAME, NAME, NAME… -, who have created institutions and nurtured them throughout the years, disregarding any hurdles.
I know what it takes to keep an institution going, how much effort and perseverance it demands - because I’m doing it myself -, so I would like to express my most sincere and fratern word of appreciation.

Also, allow me: as artists should support one another, also institutions like ours should help each other’s efforts.
It is on everyone’s best interest, and above all our public’s, that we cooperate, that we share an understanding, don’t you think?
I am thinking of matters such as clash of major events on the same day, punctuality, sound levels in halls --- There are many ways in which we could benefit from joining together.
Let us hope we can seat together, all of us, one of these days --- or, I dare to say, even periodically --- and work out ways in which things could be modified in order to make our halls more cohesive.

I invite you all to participate in the programmes that happen in Smriti-Nandan; I invite you to treat this as your own space (a space for creativity to soar, as I like to call it) and give us a helping hand. I will naturally be very happy myself if I can be of any help in your projects and endeavours.
After all, we all aim to the same, we are all working to facilitate art lovers’ access to art.

And --- have you ever stopped to think why is that? Why is it that we sticked to Art irrespective of all the challenges artists and art promoters face?
What is it about ART that moves us?
---------
I believe that it is the fact that Art allows us to transcend ourselves. Art gives us a unique insight into what there is to life beyond the pragmatism of our daily living. It provides us with a taste of the extase the spirit can achieve, and what could be more valuable than that?

The truth is art gives us a lot, but it also demands a lot of effort.
That is why I would like to take the occasion to pay tribute to all artists who take up this activity that demands them to give so much of themselves.
I especially would like to pay tribute to Women such as Vaibhavi who, apart from being a qualified dentist, a home maker and a mother that spends quality time with her children, at the same time she finds the strength and the spirit to nurture art and creativity, achieving excellence in the Dance field.
As a dancer, Vaibhavi has --- (BIO-DATA)---
--- and I am marvelled at her ability to do so many things with such devotion.
I believe Women have this special quality of multi-task, but the fact that they manage to do all these things in our country, and still dedicate to art, is something truly remarkable, so to finalize my already so long introduction, I pay tribute to all women artists.

Thank you.

By the way... Kathak Dance performance/ lecture was amazing and a true success! 100 people attended, aplauded and complimented. Our efforts compensated.

Small little details

Again I must first of all refer to the fact that I don't mean to convey any sort of prejudice in these facts, but simply to make a note of my observations in a totally random order and with completely arbitrary choice of words.

I am FOR Cultural Diversity. That's one of my biggest passions in life. That's what I'm here for. So... :

Did you know that here in India they...

• have uneven stones (moving ones, sometimes) building most of the sidewalks?
• have all sorts of litter all over many sidewalks, roads and water flows?
• have a tremendous amount of traffic polution, that makes me wear a scarf in my mouth and nose while travelling (even policemen wear it sometimes!)?
• (those who are Hindus) have many gods they pray to (each person or family having their favourite) but consider them all as being different manifestations of the same God (God as in supreme Being, father to all existence)?
• put flowers in women and children hairs and tikas (little variously shaped dots) in their forehead on a daily basis?
• (being men) many times won't even speak to women ('cause they're women)?
• have lower water tap, a bucket and a little cup in every bathroom (often instead of toilet paper)?
• have a film production industry [Bollywood] that is bigger than Hollywood?
• tend to have 5, 10, even 15 times more staff for any task than western countries do as there is overpopulation and salaries are very low?
• have someone outside stores and supermarkets keeping your bags and back-packs as you're going in, someone as cashier, someone putting your groceries in bags, then sometimes another counter to pay and then you have to have your bill stamped by a guard on your way out - how practicall is this (remember in the two last parts you're already having heavy bags all over your hands)? and this is when you, having ordered a juice or anything else two meters far, don't have to bring yourself the ticket showing your order to the hands of another employee, who will then give it to the one who's actually making the juice for you. Ah, and don't forget it!, specially if you're a woman, you'll most likely have to come back yourself and meet your drink in the counter where it was being prepared instead of having it being brought to you
• call "hands" to the whole arms?
• may ask you for more than 4 times the value of something just trying their best change to cheat you and make profit?
• have the best technological intelligence, the best Management and Computer Science universities in the world, the best software and 3rd generation technology being developed, the best adaptation to different language accents - this being also why so many crucial international company services are being outsourced in India?
• prefer having boy childs than girls (namely because girls imply that you'll have to get them maried, and as parents you'll be obliged to giving a big financial sum to the broom added many times to offering house, car, etc) - "prefer" being a very light word in many cases?
• usually have even the strongest of women, the most accomplished ones, 'bending' to the word, presence and authority of their husbands?
• have to be maried by 25 y.o. (being a girl), or otherwise you'll most likely be considered to be disgracing yourself and your life?
• from upper-middle class up, specially educated people: even among themselves tend to mix their local language or hindi with many occurences of english expressions? and some simply speak english 90% of the time, and always in official ocasions, like events and meeetings?
• seem to have the most varied cuisine in the world and find the most incredible and delicious ways of presenting and working over vegetables?
• are in their biggest majority vegetarians?
• are not supposed to eat cow as this animal is thought of as being god? (have you ever heard the expression "holy cow!"? currently it stands for the same as "holy mother of jesus" - even for american adopters already :) )
• have a significant cristian community, who for the past week has been wearing a bright pinkish orangy colour in all of their clothing (men to women, children to seniors) as last week it was Saint Mary's day?
• don't use that much of "please", "thank you" or "sorry" and even find it weird when we make too much use of it?
• in many cases have to be insisted with many times in order to get things done?
• have a hard time saying they "don't know" so you have a problem with knowing if they really understood you, or if they are in the same wave length as you; or if in fact they're just saying something for the sake of answering your question, even if they're indicating you the exact opposite direction to the one you needed?
• (specially when they are service providers) are usually too optimism (or should I say deceiving?) when it comes to TIME(ings), which makes them say "in 2 minutes" or "in 5 minutes" too often? - Me and friends immediately say or think: "yeah, 5 INDIAN minutes!". While they do this, they often perform this particular circling movement with a closed wrist and fingers in a pinacle - that corresponds to the " 'more-or-less'-also-non-assertive-same-type-of-feeling" as in their NODDING of the head... Read about it below:
• have an assertivity problem in many cases which may be highly related to this nodding of the head that is supposed to mean "yes" but is too similar to "maybe" or even "no"? - I ACTUALLY CAUGHT THIS FEATURE and I'm being mocked by friends all the time for this :D
• (the auto-drivers) often don't even answer to you when you say where you wanna go - they just drive away (if they even stopped the vehicle to talk to you, that's for a start) if they're not interested in taking you there? they also often have their meters truncated so that they go faster than the actual distance you're covering? they charge (officially) one and a half meter after 9.30 pm? often don't have their license updated and still they're driving on the roads?
• know they can bribe their way out of a traffic police fine?
• have various items of food being cooked and sold on the street, among traffic smokes and all sorts of city smells and passer-bys? and that this food is many times very good and even deserves an american tv show totally dedicated to Indian Street Cuisine? and that the the same (street exhibition) goes for vegetables, whose sale is announced in characterisitically nosy-sounding moving screams as they are transported in bikes supporting a platform?

To be continued as I experience it. ***

Kerala - 'God's Own Country'

Days go by full of experience, joy and fulfillment...

... and I tell you nothing about them! Ups!

NOW IS THE TIME.

August 14th brought me to a wonderful experience: Kochin, in the State of Kerala - a.k.a. "God's own country". I could tell why. From the cosy low built streets to the profound greenery, everything invites you to stay in Fort Kochin.

I reached my first touristy destiny in India in a boat departing from Ernakulam Town. We ate well, did some shopping, had some mango milkshakes, walked around town and made sure we experienced fish as we were in a costal city.

Going through the longest of my trips here (5 nights including two in the train), I could tell you all about my naked Ayurvedic massage made by two women in a shadowy room with never-ending oil; about a sinagogue that had the store next-door renting pieces of clothing to cover your elbows, legs, chest... for Rs.10, so that we would go in the holly place; about the dirty rooms where I was lucky to have Mariana's sheet to put over the hotel's stained ones; about the portuguese historical heritage a little bit all over Kochin's monuments; about the train trips where I easily decide to sleep 12 hours in a row so I sleep the journeys through (not without some amusement on my trip mates' part - jealousy, I'd call it! :P) (also, not without having Andre waking me up gently every once in a while to eat, shift beds, give my passport to the controler, etc :) *** ); about the fish we bought in the market and brought to be cooked in a restaurant...

But I'll tell you about what amazed me the most: Backwaters in Alleppey and Kathakalli Dance. Not that many words to describe it though.

Kathakali was simply the most colourful dance I've ever seen and most definitelly the most expressive facials I think I'll ever experience. A mixture of theatre and movement, telling a story with no spoken lines, loads of clothes and accessories and facial make up that takes 1h30 to be done... Kathakali surprises you from the beginning. Almost everything happens in their faces, so for that you're first given a thorough demonstration of the lexic that will be used in the play. I could never imagine face could combine so many movements and convey so many different emotions having support of no words! The drums, tabla and classical vocal only help the environment. Amazing actors, amazing expressive technic - very demanding, very precise, very communicative.

Now backwaters was a dream come true! Travelling in a boat through a river: great conditions, great food, great music, great environment, great staff, great shrimp (king size!) bought in an island on the way, stopping only to have lunch and dinner, and to sleep... it seemed really like God had decided to gift us the bestest of moments. Me, Mariana, André, Ahmed, Eduardo and Michelle... we just staggered at such never ending beauty as Palm Trees, bushes, rice plantations, women washing their hair in the river, children running and asking you for pens, and many many other backwaters... pass by you though as if they were a painting: I mean, one perfect painting after the other. Great neaty rooms and leaving room, and a maitress with sheets and cusheons just at the edge of the boat - where we relaxed, gave ourselves to sun, sleep and talks, enjoyed music, games, snacks... and that moving beauty life gifted us with. Undescribable.

Hampi - the ultimate landscape experience, and everything that followed... I shall leave to another post. LOVE YOU!! ***