lifebloodExploring the creative case for diversity

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Balbir Singh Dance Company is an Arts Council England National PortfolioOrganisation

Balbir Singh Dance Company Yorkshire Dance3, St Peter’s BuildingsLeeds LS9 8AHUnited Kingdom

balbirsinghdance.co.ukdigital.balbirsinghdance.com

twitter.com/balbirdance facebook.com/balbir.singhdance

Contact:alphie.bsdc@gmail.com

Published March 2018

Edited, designed and published byandrassymedia.co.uk

Balbir Singh Dance Company wasn’t alwayscalled Balbir Singh Dance Company. We usedto call ourselves Diversity Dance.

Why? Because diversity is what we’re all about.It’s right at the heart. It’s in everything we do.You could say it’s our home – the place wegrew up in.

You know how the place you were brought upin seems so ordinary, so familiar that you don’teven think about it?

That’s how diversity is for us.

You don’t go around looking at your home,saying “Look. How interesting. This place is sodifferent.”

You just get on with things.

But since you ask…

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Discussion about‘the creative casefor diversity’ in thearts is very bigright now.

At Balbir Singh Dance Company wealways say we’re all about diversity.But quite often, we leave it at that. We realise that maybe sounds a bit

churlish. It’s not. It’s just that we’venever really stopped working for longenough to talk about it.

But if ever there was a time to stop,reflect and draw out whatever it is thatmakes us what we are, this is it.So we wondered how we could

contribute to the conversation, in away that, a) doesn’t state the obviousand, b) adds something positive thatisn’t already out there. That’s not easy. Especially for a

company that’s more used to makingwork than commentating on it.In the end we went back to basics:

what is the conversation about? It’sabout the creative case for diversity.Not the social case, not the economiccase. And certainly not the politicalcase. It’s the creative case.

So any exploration has to focus onhow diversity is good for the art. That suits us fine. Because, for our

artistic director Balbir Singh, it’s allabout the creativity, all about the art.Always. We don’t mean it in the sensethat he’s passionate about the art,though of course he is. What we meanis, it’s more than a passion.Balbir is a disciple of Padmashri

Guru Pratap Pawar (that’s Guruji in thepicture below, on the right). For over12 years Pratap Pawar has schooledBalbir in the art of traditional northIndian dance – Kathak.And from day one he taught Balbir

that Kathak isn’t there to serve him, he

is there to serve Kathak. It’s non-negotiable. It’s a duty.So there you have it. Balbir Singh

has a duty to serve the artform. Here then was our question: how

does diversity serve the art? Moreprecisely what, exactly, is it aboutdiversity that enriches, enlivens,develops, feeds Balbir Singh DanceCompany’s artistic work? Now we had our question, how did

we set about answering it? Ourmethod wasn’t complicated. Quitesimply we talked. And in particular wetalked with Balbir, interviewing him indepth about his life and his art. In theprocess we uncovered a rich seam of

personal experiences that one way or Now we’ve started, we’re excited at

the thought that we can do more ofthis, and look at the ‘creative case’from other angles too. So, expectmore in the coming months.If you’re working in the arts,

especially the performing arts like us,we hope you’ll find this paper useful.It’s not the last word, far from it. If

anything we want this to be a way tostart conversations. That’s why we’ve grouped the

contents around themes. Each themebegins with a snippet from Balbir’sinterview. It was our springboard forthinking about the themes, and we

hope it may get you thinking too.We said earlier on that we don’t

often commentate on our work. We don’t find it helps develop thework creatively. We’d rather learnthrough doing. That’s why werecognise that people learn indifferent ways, not all of them verbal. So we’ve put together some

resources towards the end of thispaper that take a more visualapproach to the themes we’veuncovered. If you want to use these as a

stimulus for exploring the creativecase in a different way – please feel free to do so!

Themes:1. Drawing on our life experience2. Ways of learning3. Synthesis

Balbir Singh’s contemporary dance teacherNamron (left) and Balbir’s Kathak guru, PratapPawar (right) rehearsing Balbir Singh’s 2016piece Learning to Dance

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Drawing on our life experience

outsider statustranslating between culturesresilience of migrants1.

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“I guess I just felt always on the outside slightly, evenfrom a young age. I didn’t want to be at home because it wasthe Indian environment, and the westernenvironment was school.I didn’t exactly dislike that, because you’re observing allthe time and that suited me. But I was never the centre. I didn’t communicate much. I didn’t go out much. I wasjust in my own bubble and it was all kind of like adaydream. Yeah, a lot of the time I felt I wasdaydreaming growing up actually.”

outsider status

Art often asks us to look at our day-to-day life in new ways. By presenting theordinary in an extraordinary light, itcan offer a fresh perspective andchallenge our assumptions.People from diverse backgrounds

may be particuarly well placed tocontribute to this. Whether throughtheir experience of migration or as aresult of the negative attitudes ofothers, they may develop a sense ofbeing ‘outside the mainstream.’And while this can be an alienating

experience it can also lend a criticaldistance, which can stimulatecreativity.As artists, people who have

incorporated such outsiderexperiences into their worldview andartistic practice, are often able to takecreativity in new directions.

• Make use of artists who bringdiverse perspectives, particularlythose that stand outside themainstream, and involve them inyour company’s creative process.

• Value their ability to question and disrupt.

• They will help stimulate thedevelopment of work thatexpands our understanding,rather than simply reflectingaccepted norms.

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translatingbetween cultures

“Today I’m known fortranslating the language of one world – dance – into thelanguage of another, say, sport or science. And in a funny way as a child that was my roletoo. But back then I was translating for myparents: the TV news, or the Telegraph & Argus. Or you’d be helping them fill out some kind of form from thelocal authority. I was always translating, deciphering,decoding, interpreting.”

• There are all sorts of aliencultures out there: the artsworld is itself a foreign countryto most potenial audiences. So consider how your work willtranslate for people who havenever experienced anything likeit: is there a way in for them?

• If you’ve ever had to translatefor anyone before you alreadyknow a lot about how to dothis. So draw on yourexperience and give peoplecues – and clues – so they canbuild meaning for themselves.

Of course not many non-Indian people in Britain know much aboutIndian traditions. But often the biggestcultural unknown for many people inour audiences is the the culture ofdance itself. We really don’t think thatshould be underestimated by peopleworking in the arts. Most people havenot seen dance and don’t know how –may even be frightened – to engage

with it. That’s why Balbir hasincreasingly spoken to audiencesbefore performances begin – tointroduce them to the ideas in thepiece they’re about to see, and helpthem get over the cultural barrier ofwatching something so abstract ascontemporary dance.And once the performance starts,

that process of translating should

continue. So the work itself needs tobe translatable enough for anaudience (and performers) to access itsmeaning. If, as a result, a youngBMXer can see that maybe dance hassomething to say to them, or perhapsa dancer starts to connect theirpractice to, say, that of a rugby player,then, as far as Balbir is concerned, histranslation has succeeded!

“When I was young, in mynaive arrogance I used to saythat I was more clever than my parents. I remember seeing them leave the house atsix in the morning to go to work at the textilemill, or working overnight and coming back inthe morning to sleep.They had to work very hard just to get enough money. Andthey took from that the value of education, and that youshould work hard at school. They instilled that work ethic.Actually their emotional intelligence was far superior to mine– their ability to survive, so far from home, with the uprootingthat they’d had from India to England. It took me a long timeto realise that.”

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Resilience is not something thatusually comes high on the list ofqualities for an artist. But artists whohave experienced the challenges ofmigration, either themselves or in theirfamilies, are inevitably schooled inovercoming its demands. And that is good for their creativity.

After all, the ability to work hard, tokeep going despite setbacks, and toaccept or even relish challenges, arevaluable assets in any artistic endeavour.

• Learn from the attitude toartistic work that diverse artistsbring. Let their enthusiasm fora challenge feed the artisticenergy of your company.

• Let your own life experiencesguide you too and reflect onhow your own resilience canhelp you push yourselfcreatively.

resilience ofmigrants

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2. positive role modelsdifferent ways of learningthe guru-disciple relationship

Ways of learning

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“We had one of the first blackheadmasters in the countrytake over the headship atWyke, the secondary school I was at.Carleton Duncan his name was. He came from an interesting background. He wasAmerican and he’d been a boxer and adancer and a lawyer.He really shook up the school. His approach to teaching was so different. You felt he was talking to you as an adult.And he riled the other teachers, who were complacent.After a while you saw this transformation in the school. You felt you were learning, and that he valued yourlearning. And you would just experience this feeling of‘where is he taking me next?’”

Namron – BalbirSingh’s contemporarydancer teacher atNSCD – was the firstblack contemporarydancer to beemployed by a Britishdance company

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Carleton Duncan, Balbir Singh’s historyteacher at secondary school, played adecisive role in igniting the youngBalbir’s enthusiasm for learning.But Mr Duncan wasn’t to be the only

inspirational role model to influenceBalbir’s future direction as an artist.Namron, Balbir’s contemporary

dance teacher at Northern School ofContemporary Dance, was also aninspiration to Balbir and many of hiscontemporaries at NSCD. Namron’s own journey had a heroic

dimension, shaped as it was by thestruggles of becoming a dancer in thesixties, a time when recognition – inany field – was far from easily achievedfor a young man from the Caribbean.Namron’s stellar career showedstudents at NSCD that success waspossible for young people fromdiverse backgrounds.Today Balbir is himself a role model

for young performers. Keelan Phillips,a young champion BMX cyclist,brought in by Balbir to play alongsidedancers in Champion of the Flatlands,

learned to see his sport in a new – andartistic – light under Balbir’smentorship. Dancers and musicianshave also acknowledged Balbir Singh’simportance as a positive role model insupporting their growth as artists.

“My creativity as a BMX cyclist alwayslooking to develop the next trick hasbeen massivley informed by workingwith Balbir and taking so much fromthe way he shaped Champion of the

Flatlands into the exciting piece oftheatre is has become. Now I see thebike and my art with a whole newdimension thanks to Balbir.”Keelan Phillips

“As a dancer it is important to have faithin the creative process and the journeyyou are on. It is always about trying tocatch up with Balbir’s thinking as the workunfolds in the studio, almost withoutrealising it is happening. It seems to justnaturally come together and define itself.To be able to shape and craft work in thisway whilst giving a strong sense ofownership to the artists is the height ofcreativity in not just making the work butcreating the right atmosphere andenvironment for it to flourish it. Onealways comes out of working with Balbirhaving grown as an artist and taking fromother disicplines and the combination oftalents he brings into the studio.”Sooraj Subramanian

“Balbir is a consummate talent at being able tomanage the creative process and artists, getting allinvolved to feel that they are part of somethingbigger and special under his skillful eye.”Namron

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• There are many diverse ways oflearning. These are often expressedas the seven learning styles: visual,aural, verbal, physical, logical,social and solitary

• It’s interesting to think about howmany of these are potentially anatural fit for the performing arts

• As perfoming arts companies, arewe providing the opportunities fordiverse learners to flourish?

“Walking home I used tomemorise all the car registrationnumbers along the street. I don’t know why, but I wouldjust remember them. I knewthat walking home I had themall in my head.I think that’s when a developed an ability andan interest in numbers. We never had a sociallife – we had no relatives or family. Later, I just couldn't socially integrate at university. It wasquite a painful thing for me, and I didn’t enjoy it. I was neveracademically bright. I failed all my GCSEs the first time round,which is quite interesting. Everything I failed, and then I beganteaching myself. I became an autodidact. I love that word.”

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“In terms of the Guru-Disciple relationship itis not just about finding a good Guru, but theGuru finding a good student. In this I feelblessed. Balbir’s ability to have such a deepunderstanding of Kathak and be able tointegrate it in such innovative, bold andunimagined ways with other artists, artformsand disciplines is incredible. Balbir is truly avisionary dance maker.”Padmashri Guru Pratap Pawar

the guru-disciplerelationship

Left: Three generations of artists (left to right) –Pratap Pawar’s Guru Pandit Birju Maharaj,Balbir’s Guru Pratap Pawar and Balbir Singh.Below: Balbir Singh with his Guru, PadmashriPratap Pawa.Facing page: BSDC dancer Sooraj Subramanianvenerating Padmashri Pratap Pawar.

The guru-shishya tradition in Indianculture is a system of mentoring inwhich teachings are transmitted from aguru (teacher) to a shishya (disciple). Unlike western student-teacher

relationships, the guru-shishyarelationship involves a high degree ofspritual commitment, devotion andobedience. It often begins with a structured

initiation ceremony in which the guruaccepts the initiate as a shishya andalso accepts responsibility for thespiritual wellbeing and progress of thenew shishya.

In Kathak, the guru-shishyarelationship is of fundamentalimportance. Students should approachthe study of Kathak with humility, anopen mind, and respect for oneselfand for the guru. Balbir Singh’s guru is Padmashri

Pratap Pawar. Popularly known as‘India’s Divine Dancer’, Pratap isrenowned as an outstanding exponentand teacher of Kathak. His personalstyle is unique, unostentatious, sereneand characterised by an impeccabletechnique that blends precision infootwork with aesthetics and imagery.

Pratap Pawar is acclaimed for hiswork in bringing together differentcultures by blending Indian dance withdiverse traditions from around theworld. He pioneered the concept of‘East meeting West’ in the field ofdance, and has been instrumental indeveloping a fusion of Kathak andSpanish Flamenco. Pratap’s own guru is Pandit Birju

Maharaj, from whom he receivedauthentic Kathak instruction within theLucknow tradition.

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3.Synthesis

heritagethird culture kids

“I knew nothing about Indian dance, had never doneanything remotely similar. I was someone who’d rejected India for along time because I’d seen economicallyhow it impacted on my parents and their struggle. So when I started to discover Kathak, I was exploring itfrom a western perspective.”

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heritageJanuary 2016 is an important date forBalbir Singh. It marks the first time heset foot in India since leaving as a babywith his parents, to live in England.Why return now? There were two

reasons. First, Balbir’s guru, London-based Padmashri Pratap Pawar, wasembarking on a tour there. So at abasic level there was an opportunity tosee him perform and support him. The second reason? Curiosity.

As Balbir said at the time: “I havespent a long time, if not denying, thencertainly not giving thought to theconnection with India. This was achance to see what happens when I fill in the gaps.”

“I am Indian by birth, but actually, in termsof my creative influences, it was always thewestern cultural heritage that attractedme. In fact, I would say if anything I reactedagainst family expectations. I don’tsuppose many people who know me todaywould realise that as a youngster inBradford I wore the turban, had the longhair, spoke Punjabi. I think I reacted againstthese kinds of influences. And creativeexploration was one way of doing this.” Balbir Singh

When Balbir trained in contemporarydance he hadn’t even heard of Kathak.For Balbir, as an artist, a person’ssupposed cultural background is notnecessarily the key to understandingtheir art. He sees ‘East versus West’ as just another duality among many: “I look at what happens when you bringtogether dance and sport, dance andscience... and yes, of course, traditionalIndian and western contemporarydance styles too.” “My blood is Indian, having been

born there. But, as a consequence ofmy upbringing in the west I’ve taken ona different perspective. I may havediscovered that I’m Indian rather late in

the day. But equally I don’t want to betoo Indian. Artistically and culturally, Iam about synthesising the best of bothworlds. So it’s the perspective thatmatters. The work with SheffieldUniversity for KrebsFest was a goodexample. The process of collaboratingartistically with molecular biologists –real hard-core scientists, some of them– was actually enhanced by the dualityof my own life experience. India mayhave been completely unknown tome – but in a way science is a foreigncountry too. However you can visit it.You can take something with you, inthis case dance, movement, creativity.And you can bring something back.”

Balbir on his firstvisit to India,January 2016

thirdculturekids

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“I was brought up in two verydifferent cultures: Bradfordand Leeds. There was a huge difference between theprovincial life I had experienced growing up inBradford, and the cosmopolitan, artistic cultureI then encountered at the Northern School ofContemporary Dance in Leeds.”

Back in the early 2000s, when Balbir’scompany Diversity Dance wasrebranding as BSDC, Balbir wasinterviewed about his culturalbackground. He confirmed that, yes,he had indeed been influenced by twovery different cultures – the culture ofBradford and the culture of Leeds! Itwas a provocative comment, designedto stop the reader in their tracks. But ithad a serious side to it.Of course his parents’ Indian

background had an impact. But theday-to-day influences were British. Andfor a developing artist, the differencebetween the creative milieu of a citylike Leeds, and Bradford – which at the

time had a poorly supported artsscene – was probably more decisivethan the East / West dichotomy.Over time of course, India proved

more relevant than Balbir’s commenthad suggested. Later, when Balbirbegan to acknowledge India, it wasn’tin the sense of ‘returning to his roots’.Rather he could see it as one elementin his development as a person. When two cultures exert their

influence, what comes out of it is notso much a mixture of the two elementsas a third, different thing. A thirdculture, in fact. There’s even a name for people

who grow up in this hybrid

environment: Third Culture Kids. When Third Culture Kids do art, it

can be difficult for culturalcommentators to grasp what’s goingon: what is Balbir’s art – is it Indian? Isit British? The answer is: both andneither. As an artistic phenomenon, this is

far from unique. Examples of artexpressing a third culture may be farmore widespread that we previouslythought. Perhaps we’ve just not beenlooking for it. Once we start to look atart through the ‘third culture’ prism,we begin to see it everywhere. Maybeit’s time to rethink our culturalcategories…

• American sociologists DavidPollock and Ruth Van Rekennoted that life as a ThirdCulture Kid can create asense of rootlessness andrestlessness, where home is“everywhere and nowhere.”

• Written as part of theirexploration of the emotionaland psychological realities ofthe ‘third culture journey’ itcould equally stand as adescription of what is takesto make an artist.

• Could this be the heart of the‘creative case’?

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visualresourcesPeople learn in different ways. So over the next few pages we’ve put together someresources that take a more visual approach to the themes we’ve uncovered. If you wantto explore the creative case in a different way – perhaps through using the images as astimulus for discussion – please feel free! Here are some questions you might want tothink about while looking at the images:

In what way is the creative case for diversity being explored in this image?

How might the impact of diversity be experienced by the performers?

For the artist making the work, how is diversity feeding the creative process?

What does the image suggest in terms of audience experience?

How else could diversty be used to enrich the work still further?

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