SA
Vanessa, how are you? Can you describe your energy today for me in three words?
V
Comfortable within it.
SA
How has your spirit been feeling the last few months?
V
My spirit has been soaring high on love and an abundance of frozen dumplings. My babe and I came back to Australia for what was supposed to be a five week trip to get married. We ended up having to cancel, get married low-key COVID style and have spent the last 5 months living on my in-laws’ farm. I am feeling very loved and very in love with everything about life right now.
SA
What was it like moving back from Australia after spending some time in New York?
V
What a question! So I’ve lived in Australia for a majority of my life, yet it’s the only place that gives me culture shock. When I was in New York I felt as though, for the first time in my entire life, I was invisible. I got to just be a human, not an exotic unicorn. So in being invisible, I’ve never felt so seen! At first it’s overwhelming when you return to Australia because you’re suddenly hyper-visible again. Then you learn to rebuild your thick skin. I’m totally fine with this reality. It allows me to see past a well-meaning comment and instead see that person for their soul. I don’t bother correcting people much, I know that’s considered bad practise but I actually need to pick my battles for the sake of my mental health.
SA
What have been some of the challenges you faced with Groove Therapy, as a woman of color taking up so much bold space in Australia? The wellness industry in Australia in particular is so white dominated. How did you feel stepping out with your project initially? Were you met with resistance and how did you overcome that?
V
I know we exist adjacent to many white wellness establishments but we are so far out on our own limb that we don’t feel as though there’s competition. The main challenge is dance not being a part of Australian culture, so a lot of our energy in Australia is spent on marketing the benefits of dance and educating people re: the cultural roots of music and dance.
When you’re in a place like New York or London you don’t need to explain what hip hop, house or dancehall is before you proceed to teach it. Even if you don’t like or listen to a genre like, say dancehall, in those international cities, you’d know of it simply by virtue of existing in a melting pot of cultures that overlap and collide with your world.
But overall I haven’t felt bold or courageous starting Groove Therapy in the slightest. If anything I’m the one who is constantly inspired by the regulars who come week after week and show that support, love and appreciation for this little vibe we’ve created.
SA
Can you tell me a little bit about your practice as a dancer? I am so inspired by the fact that you began as a bharatanatyam dancer! What was that like? And how did you transition into Groove Therapy?
V
I love the fact that I began as a bharatnatyam dancer too! The thing with bharatnatyam is that it’s very…classical. So at around 17 I stopped because the training got hectic and I was too busy being a frivolous teenager. I started dancehall at 19 and felt a different kind of liberated. Street dance is so different from classical dance in that self-expression is part of the foundational technique.Classical dance, on the other hand, is about learning skeletal and muscular technique, rhythmic fundamentals, religious philosophies and history for years – decades even – before you can begin to comfortably break rules, push boundaries and express your own stories through the art form.
As for a link between the two – you don’t do anything in bharatnatyam without learning why. So, for me, it doesn’t make sense to simply learn a street dance move or listen to a genre of music without asking where it came from. I think it’s a fun kind of curiosity because it lends to a liberating, dynamic and kinetic history lesson every time you step into a dance class.
SA
I never feel more in my body, more liberated and all powerful than when I am dancing. Taking up space physically is so revolutionary for those of us who are sidelined, it’s transformative for not only our physical selves but also for our mind and spirit. I know for you, dancing is a political act. How do you navigate this concept of liberation and how might you encourage your students to take the energy they cultivate on the dance floor, off the dance floor?
V
Wow how beautifully put! I could talk about this for hours but at the end of the day dancing is fun, free and asks that you enjoy your own body for what it can do, not what it looks like. Those three elements are so anti-establishment to me. Having fun means feeling joy within a system that constantly tries to rob you of it.
Dancing in your bedroom costs nothing. We live in a world that is so full of angst and noise that entire industries have been built around selling your happiness back to you at an exorbitant price. Enjoying your body for the way it moves rather than the way it looks is a huge middle finger to the fashion, beauty, wellness and lifestyle industries that manufacture, then profit off your self-loathing.
Being able to grind, get low, flick your hair and grope your own damn body feels electric. Your skin glows from the sweat and your entire body is pulsing with the frenetic energy of serotonin charging through you. Go find me a cleanser that can do that.
SA
How has your knowledge of bharatanatyam aided your work with Groove Therapy? Do you think you’re tapping into ancestral knowledge and how does that come up?
V
So I still train as a bharatnatyam dancer under my guru Sahi at Navatman Dance School, New York. What I love about Sahi is she is progressive, contemporary and pushes boundaries without ever sullying the authenticity of the art form. We learn everything from tapping into intention by meditating before a simple Alaripu to aligning our spine, hips, feet, neck and the tips of our fingers whilst drilling our adavus.
It’s not romantic, exotic or mystical. It’s very matter-of-fact Indian. You know – Indian aunties and uncles dropping their kids off, big cooking drives where the community chips in to make large vats of food and staying behind after class to help sew student costumes and build stage props.
It’s India, not the idea of India. So more than tapping into ancestral knowledge, I feel very grounded when I’m there because it does not exist for the white gaze. Learning an ancient classical art form teaches you that the foundations and understanding of a culture simply cannot be rushed. There’s no 10 week crash course, there’s no intensive summer camp and there’s no volunteer work in some remote village that automatically certifies you with cultural authenticity.
In that way, I’m able to understand my place as a non-black woman teaching street dances like hip hop. There’s a level to which I can pass on technique but it needs to be constantly supplemented with the voices of the creators of the art forms. Honestly I think I’ve mainly learned that the more you know, the more you realize how little you know.
SA
I think you’re sooooo cool, I’ve been following your work for so long and as a fellow brown girl born and raised in Australia, it’s been so motivating to see how you move against what is traditionally expected of us. How has this journey helped you understand a deeper sense of self?
V
Wow thank you! I think I’m just stubborn and riotous in what I stand for. Then there’s my parents, who are half-hearted about tradition and quick to dismiss archaic cultural thought-practises when my sister and I challenge them. In that way my parents have let me be 100% myself. I’m mindful of my coconut-ness and the level of visibility I’m afforded within white spaces compared to so many of the more culturally Indian people out there so I try to be mindful of who I create content for. My biggest gripe is that we brown folk are so reduced to a few key tropes by Westerners – like slums, yoga, Appu, taxi drivers, Om, marigolds, bindis and curry.
I want to highlight how truly diverse we are as a people. I want the world to understand how cosmopolitan we are. I want people to understand that many Indians have access to better tech than people in the west. I want people to see past romantic Hinduism and look at the way it is currently being weaponized within India’s politics. I want people to understand, truly understand, that we are not a mono-culture. We are a pulsing, breathing mass of contradicting ideologies, languages, religions, subcultures and socio-economic classes. We are affected by colorism, casteism and colonization. We are a throbbing dichotomy of an ancient world that exists within the hyper-futurism of contemporary India. I want the world to understand that we are more than just one narrative. So that’s honestly my reason for existing on the internet – to show people that I’m Indian but also that I’m Vanessa, a weirdo individual that can’t quite fit into any one ‘brand.’
SA
If the pandemic is a portal, what are your hopes for Groove Therapy post revolution?
V
Eyyy I see you Arundati Roy reference! Groove Therapy will continue to grow, morph and evolve on the same trajectory it was following pre-pandemic. The difference is the shift in global consciousness re: the way we live life and interact with cultures that are not ours, especially post the Black Lives Matter movement. I see such a shift in the way people absorb the same discourse we’ve always put to our audience. People seem to actually be listening! The lyrics to that song, the story behind the movement and the politics behind the sub-culture suddenly has a gravitas now. I can see the penny drop for so many in our community. I’m all about it.
SA
What are a couple things you are listening to/eating/watching/reading/making/creating that are helping you stay grounded during this time?
V
Oh! I’ve been interested in learning more on the art of good conversation lately. The other day my spirit lifted out of my body and watched myself talking to someone. I was boring. I just regurgitated the same ‘smart’ political opinions to every new person that came my way in the last month. Yawn. So now I try to converse in a way that keeps me interested. I try not to repeat catch phrases or same-same political musings and am trying not to say ‘um’ or ‘like’ as much. So far the results have been underwhelming. I bought a Masterclass subscription and I am devouring everything on it – the writing workshops, the filmmaking series and the cooking tips.
I’ve been getting into retro Arab pop, classic disco, vintage Bollywood and crate digging for contemporary Indian musicians who can sample carnatic/hindustani music without butchering it.
I’ve been reading Arundhati Roy, David Sedaris, Miranda July, Jhumpa Lahiri, Khaled Hosseni, Jerry Saltz – the usual suspects, nothing you haven’t heard of. I’ve been trying to read Romeo and Juliet but it’s such a brain warp to read Shakespearean English casually before bed so I’m only like 5 pages deep.I tried my hand at pottery and it was a wonderful lesson on keeping your ego in check. I’ve been stretching on the beach. Turns out you don’t need activewear, a yoga mat or a mermaid body to stretch. You can just do it in your pyjamas and weird high bun to prevent those injuries. I binged the entire Indian Matchmaking series. I recently discovered that I’m really good at tennis. By really good I mean not as dismal as expected.
I want you to know that I just re-read all the things I’ve been doing and realized how impressive it sounds, but please know that the last five months has mostly just been a montage of me eating toast and watching cat videos.
Training across New York, Paris, Berlin, London, Tokyo, Brazil, regional Australia, and her purple bedroom, is particularly fascinated with street dance and the way it is born outside of the dance studio context. In 2016 Vanessa founded Groove Therapy, aimed at making dance accessible to all walks of life. The program has brought dance to at-risk youth, Indigenous communities, dementia sufferers, refugee girls and the every-day person, using the political and healing foundations that these street dance styles are built upon and mindfully appropriating it in new communities to help spark global conversation and cultural understanding.