About 20 to 30 years ago the general public showed great interest and involvement in the traditional art forms. But today the interest in these dance forms has considerably declined. Especially most of the traditional dance forms, except a few limited shows, have lost their pristine purity.
The approach of the dance field can be divided into two different sections. It can be viewed from students’ angle and teachers’ angle.
Ten years back, the total number of student involvement especially in the traditional classical Bharatha Natyam field is much greater than in the present era. Today the lack of dedication among teachers is a common feature. The main aim of dance teachers is to project themselves as prominent figures.
Print publicity
Most of the teachers seek too much publicity through different mass media at any cost. They try to seek publicity through the print media. Some of the teachers are too crazy for publicity. Most of them do not have any dedication or devotion towards their selective dance forms. They do not pay much attention to preserving or protecting the age-old traditional dance forms. They always organize colourful shows with glamour and pomp. The majority of the parents are not aware of the value of art forms.
They trust the teachers and their mentors and send their children without knowing their real ability, capability, nature, and attitude. The students should participate in the dance programmes because participating in shows is a part and parcel of the dance training. But after a public show, some photographers of certain newspapers keep on publishing pictures of the same show repeatedly.
Sometimes the general public is strongly misled by such fake publicity. It implies the corrupt practices of certain photographers attached to the print media. Many top officials have no control over their photographers. Sometimes new dancers are given too much publicity by newspaper photographers. Sometimes dance reviews are written by people who do not know anything about dance. Unrecognized titles are very often used by the so-called dance teachers to attract innocent students. Such false publicity would lead the whole art world to a miserable situation shortly.
Constructive measures
One should remember that it is the responsibility of a dance teacher to arrange stage programmes for the benefit of the students. Arranging such dance shows is the duty of dance teachers. Some teachers organize frequent shows to gain publicity. But they fail to understand the fact that frequent shows would adversely affect the general interest and enthusiasm of the audience and eventually they lose interest in the same type of presentation of the same choreographer. At present, besides the live programmes, numerous dance programmes are freely available in numerous forms such as pre-recorded video dance programmes, internet dance display programmes and plenty of traditional dance forms telecast by different television channels.
To preserve the traditional dance forms from decay, it is the utmost duty of dance teachers to preserve them by adopting numerous constructive measures. To protect the traditional dance forms from decay, the dance teachers are supposed to arrange lectures, demonstrations, seminars and discussions about the existing traditional dance forms. In the practical dance field, besides the training one dance teacher must preserve the art by numerous concrete measures. Anyhow a wide range of publicity is requested for a performing art form but it should be earned in a decent and disciplined manner.
Advertisements and publicity are very much needed for business and marketing fields. But the approach and methodology of publicity level for a classical dance field are entirely different. Building up the reputation of a dance teacher is much more important than seeking publicity. They are supposed to build up their name by their own hard work and acquired knowledge. Maintaining self-respect, reputation, identity and individuality are very much needed for a dance teacher, rather than seeking mere publicity through the mass media. The dance teachers must earnestly take pains to preserve and transmit the divine norms of the traditional art forms to the next generation.
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