Tapas Das in Blogs

Letter From the Editor: Back to School and Back to Dance

Whether you and your students took the summer off or you’ve been busy with camps and intensives, back-to-school season is special. It’s a time to return to beloved and comfortable routines. It’s also a time to plan for the year ahead—to outline new goals and to implement new initiatives. Starting strong in September can set you up for success through spring recitals and beyond.

To inspire you this month, we’re sharing interviews with Tai Jimenez, director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem School; Endalyn T. Outlaw, dean of the School of Dance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts; and Katherine Horrigan, founder and CEO of Dance Academy of Virginia. We’ll also be talking about “play” in ballet, offering tactics to incorporate fun into the classroom without sacrificing training rigor.

Finally, are you starting the school year off in a new city or planning a move? Our upcoming story on looking for teaching positions after relocating will equip you with plenty of tools so you can find a new studio home.

Best,

Kathryn Holmes

kholmes@dancemedia.com

Tapas Das: Tapas Das, a young entrepreneur of our times started TWIST N TURNS in 2005. A person who is kind, generous, creative and down to earth wanted to start his own one of a kind dance academy. According to him, Dance is a language of movements that involves space, time and the human body. He was born and grew up in Kolkata, the cultural hub of India. Being appreciated in the field of dance all his life, he is extremely talented. He has been dancing since the age of four. Once he finished his high school, he learned jazz/modern and contemporary dance. His horizons were broadened even more when he started dancing Bollywood with Beat Busters for 4 years, which then was the most upcoming dance crew in Kolkata. After that exposure, he studied how to be a dance teacher, which later started helping him impart his knowledge about dance. Thus, in 2005, with the help of family and friends, he started TWIST N TURNS. Starting with a mere number of 40 students, today TWIST N TURNS currently has over 500 students. Over the time Tapas has taught and performed all over the country. He has performed in cities such as Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, Jhansi, Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Udaipur etc. He has been an active participant in the Salsa India Congress in the cities of Bangalore and Bombay, and he has also visited various International Salsa Congresses in Europe, namely in Berlin ,Singapore, Hong Kong,Dubai. He is been also trained recently at Broadway Dance Center (New York), Alvin Alley (New York) and Steps on Broadway (New York). He is not only a dancer or teacher. He is a successful choreographer and has coordinated various shows without difficulty in our country. His leadership skills are exceptional, thus he is where he stands today. His aim in life would be to become a dance educator. He wants to share his tremendous knowledge in the right way to the right people. He is also, simultaneously running other brands like Zumba Kolkata, Bollywood Studio ArtistWala.com and India International Dance Institute.