Life Dance steals the show!

Life Dance troupe waiting at the Elephant House until the bus arrives to take us to the performance.

Lots of after school training is involved.

Life Dance is awesome and Rising Star kids love it!  Promethean Sparks is the company that has established this program on campus.  It reaches out to impoverished communities to touch kid’s hearts through dance and teach life skills and values.  Volunteers with dance skills travel to different parts of the world and teach classes to students.  At Rising Star the volunteer teaches classes within the school and also trains the Life Dance troupe on campus.

This summer Sarah Hersey, a college student, has devoted her summer to making a difference at Rising Star.  The Life Dance group loves her.  That is a pretty big compliment as this is a pretty talented and dedicated dance troupe.  They practice every day after school and perform at various functions.  In between instructors they hold their own practices to keep up their skills when there is a delay in a new dance master making it to India.   I hope this group continues to always be a part of Rising Star.  It promotes students to be good role models, exposes them to dance, increases confidence and it is a program that teaches discipline, dedication and teamwork.  That is qualities that produce good leaders beyond the school years.

 The short term volunteers get to see them dance on the last evening of their session.  Usually there is not a dry eye in the group by the time they are done.  The group brings awareness to the leprosy affected when performing outside of Rising Star through one of their dances.  They also do traditional dances and modern dances.  They do their dances to Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees, David Archaleta and others. 

Waiting at the performance for our their turn to take charge of the stage.
 Sarah, the redhead, is telling them some last minute reminders.

Recently I got to chaperone them on one of their excursions to Chennai.  It was a benefit put on by a large business group to encourage people to volunteer time to help children in need in India.  It was performed in an open air theatre in the middle of the city and hundreds attended.  Our students did a bang up job.  They performed with confidence, skill and had fun.  It showed.  I was so proud of them.  Sarah, so young, was so professional as their dance master.  She said a few words about why they dance and the hard work that the kids put in to the audience.  The group handled themselves so well and proudly represented Rising Star.  They were the best performance there.  The crowd went wild with clapping and gave them their first standing ovation.  They deserved it and felt like superstars.

The Superstars

 

The group that promoted this also welcomed us in and gave everyone the superstar treatment.  They sent school supplies home with everyone, dinners to eat on the bus home.  They also had provided the bus to transport us there and back.  We listened to all kinds of different music….mostly modern hip hop Tamil music.  The beat was good.  I always think the singing is a little screechy though.

Ambiga and Savitha

Vimil-taken before we left.

I got to know many of the kids better.  On the way there Ambiga and Savitha filled me in on questions I had about villages we were driving through.  They pointed out things I may not know about and shared their cookies with me.  On the way home I sat by Vimil and realized how much I like this young man.  If I were to have a son it would be this young man.  He told me about his life, family and other random things. 

It was a great evening and one I will never forget.  Thank you, Life Dance.