Article - Theatre for holistic development - Ambika Kameshwar

Ever since I was a little girl I was exposed to the wonderful art forms of dance and music.  I always got so much from them that I believed strongly in dance and music being far more than ‘merely’ performing arts. Structured dance and music and their performance is, I believed, and believe, only a part of the whole.  For me, in the movement of the trees, the leap of the deer, the prancing of the waves, in the laughter of children, in the tears of the afflicted and expressions of the proud parent…In every single movement of the universe, there is dance and in every single sound there is music.

My belief would have remained a belief, but for god giving me opportunity after opportunity for reinforcing my belief and helping me structure dance, music and drama into a methodology that does not only result in performance but goes far deeper seeking and fulfilling every developmental need of an individual. From 1982, when I started working with the visually impaired children at Ramana Maharishi Academy for the blind, Bangalore and in 1985 when I volunteered to teach dance and music to children of Spastic Society of India (now Vidya Sagar) till I started Rasa – Ramana Sunritya Aalaya in 1989, I found fulfillment in structuring and documenting the new methodology of holistic self development which I first called C.M.E. (Creative Movement Education) and later changed the term to T.H.D (Theatre for Holistic Development) for it covered the scope of the methodology more fully. 

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