Scribe Project proudly launches Inspired Youth – our latest campaign aimed at identifying and featuring passionate youth working towards achieving their goals – in hopes of inspiring and encouraging the younger generations to go after their dreams. Every month, one such person would be featured on our site, who has conquered fears and sweat brows so as to fulfill aspirations.
Among these outstanding youths is Rupalavanya Balasubramaniam, an aspiring dancer who once reserved, is now a level headed young woman who exudes confidence and charisma. Having started off with learning the Indian Classical Dance at the tender age of 6, dance was merely a co-curricular activity that she excelled in – until she realized her passion for it in her early teens, at 14 years old.
Among her first stepping stones in her journey to pursue dance, Rupa identifies enrolling into the School of the Arts (SOTA) as the monumental one that kick started her journey, given how she found her true calling in the art form, only after her enrollment into SOTA. She drew inspiration from the wide array of other dance forms that she could take up and believes that learning a vast range of them helps her in honing her skills in Indian Classical, that she identifies as her root dance form. With 16 years of experience under her belt, Rupa is now proficient in Classical Ballet, Modern Contemporary, Chinese Folk Dance and Flamenco – her favorite being Modern Contemporary.
“The biggest and most terrible thing I have ever been through was also when I was at SOTA, between the years when I was 14 and 17,” she says as ironically, as much as it was the platform that helped realize her zest for dance, her time at SOTA was also the most daunting for her as a dancer given the highly competitive environment she has never before been accustomed to. However, with the mental and physical progress she has had ever since, Rupa confidently says she would have handled those challenges a lot better if faced with them today. She also credits her mother, on being her biggest supporter and pillar she leant on during the overwhelming period at school, who constantly told her to never compare herself with anyone but instead focus on self-improving.
Post SOTA, Rupa went on to pursue a Diploma in Technology & Arts Management at Republic Polytechnic – to which she highly credits the boost in wanting to take up her passion to the next level, much more seriously. Meeting people from across various arts forms and at all stages, of both learning and having learnt them, Rupa made memorable bonds that drive her more towards excellence. She had also performed at the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Asian Arts Festival, both during her second year at Republic Polytechnic.
Currently pursuing a part-time Degree in Communications and well on her way to becoming a CCA instructor with MOE, Rupa’s first milestone is set on having secured teaching contracts with at least 2 schools by next year. Subsequently, she is also working on staging dance productions once every three years – the first one already underway, on being a fundraiser for special needs children. Besides the tediousness and time consumption that come with staging a production, manpower and getting everyone involved to don more than one hat, are among the harder tasks required to stage dance productions. However, Rupa believes these difficulties could be easily overcome with the right people by her side as it is after all, a team effort.
When asked about her end goal, “My main goal is to teach kids or teenagers and help them feel something they may not have felt in any other dance class they may have attended previously,” says Rupa. She hopes to teach in a way that would encourage aspiring dancers to fuel the art form with their emotions, to use it as a medium to vent their feelings. She also hopes to inspire them and for her classes to serve as a getaway for students from whatever troubles they may be facing in their daily lives.
Rupa firmly believes nothing could have possibly made her journey in dance thus far, any less challenging that it has been. She advocates for going through everything that you need to go through – the good and the harder times included – in order to climb up the ladder to success, no matter the field you are, or you aspire to be, in. “No regrets, just love!”, she wraps it up, with a hearty laugh.
Suggestions of inspired personals? Email us at [email protected]
