Hemalatha Parthasarathy
Shruti Parthasarathy (left) leads a workshop in the athletic but flowing moves of Bharatanatyam.
It’s early June and Shruti Parthasarathy, a junior at Middleton High School, is rejoicing in wrapping up another academic year. She just took her subject SATs, she’s eyeing Yale and Northwestern for college, and she’s looking forward to summer break. But Parthasarathy is also celebrating the success of Calm with Kalaa, an Indian classical dance initiative she created and introduced to freshmen at Middleton High School this spring.
“Dance has always just been a part of me,” says Parthasarathy. “I felt really thankful that I had Indian classical dance as the thing that I could lean on when I was really stressed. I felt very compelled to help others because a lot of kids don’t have that [release].”
Parthasarathy has been dancing since she was five years old, initially taking classes at an area temple, then switching over to instruction via Skype with a teacher in India. Her story was first featured in Isthmus in June 2017.
Parthasarathy found the transition to high school challenging. Increased academic pressures coupled with social anxiety over trying to fit in, while still embracing her Indian heritage, caused her stress levels to rise.
“I would come home and dance my soul away. All my emotions that I had built in, I would just dance it out and let it all go,” says Parthasarathy.
Through coursework in psychology and sociology, Parthasarathy realized her feelings of stress and anxiety were also common among her peers, and occurring during a period of vulnerable mental health development. While she was familiar with popular calming methods like nature walks or yoga, she recognized the opportunity for introducing Bharatanatyam, a 2,000-year-old Indian classical dance, as another stress relief mechanism.
“It’s an art form and most people don’t even know what it is because it’s so ancient,” says Parthasarathy.
The athletic but flowing moves of Bharatanatyam involve hand gestures, footwork and facial expressions both simple and complex. Mastering several movements in a row requires a shift in students’ focus to what their bodies are doing in the moment. The dances tell moral stories that can transport participants mentally. And physically, the sequences touch upon acupressure points, inducing physical calm.
Parthasarathy started Calm with Kalaa because she thought there were possibilities to share the “really easy ways to de-stress through Indian classical dance.” (Kalaa is the Sanskrit word for “art.”)
Plus, she says she wanted to bring more awareness to a rising epidemic, stress among teens. The cross-cultural aspect of the dance promotes racial harmony, too.
Parthasarathy’s initiative was introduced this past semester into the curriculum of Foundations of Health, a required freshman course at Middleton High School. Student activities coordinator Ben White says he was intrigued by an alternative way to relieve stress for incoming freshmen.
“It was great to see a junior student want to give back and help the freshmen,” says White. “This is why I got into education, to work with students like Shruti who want to make things better for their peers.”
Parthasarathy credits the staff at the high school and school district for their openness and support; she even taught a workshop to district staff during one of their development days.
Parthasarathy teaches the workshops, demonstrating various hand gestures and footwork that can be used as stress relievers because they activate certain pressure points in the body. One student later shared how she used the hand gestures to help calm her nerves before competing at a gymnastics meet.
While Parthasarathy’s main mission was reducing stress, she also noticed she wasbridging cultures and reducing bias. “What I saw was a lot of the kids picked up on the similarities between more westernized styles of dance, like tap, and Indian classical dance.”
White says Parthasarathy covers the cultural undertones as well as she can in the short time (20-25 minutes) that she is allotted.
In April, Parthasarathy received a certificate of accomplishment from the Princeton University Prize in Race Relations which singles out “high school students who are working to increase understanding and mutual respect among all races.”
As she enters senior year this fall, Parthasarathy hopes to continue to teach the workshop at Middleton, as well as introduce the initiative in other area high schools. She has already taught workshops at Yale and Northwestern and plans to continue Calm with Kalaa during college, wherever she ends up.
“I never thought Indian classical dance would be so accepted and tried out, especially in Wisconsin,” says Parthasarathy. “In the most unexpected moments, these kids will tell their stories to me and they probably don’t think it has much of an effect on me, but it has. It makes me more persistent to continue. It gives me fuel.”
Calm With Kalaa
calmwithkalaa.org; 608-237-1966
[Editor's note: This article has been corrected to note that the SATs were subject SATs.]
