Tapas Das in Blogs

Letter From the Editor: Honoring Dance Education’s Brightest Lights

Each summer, Dance Teacher celebrates educators who have made a profound impact in the field. Our 2025 Dance Teacher Award recipients are trailblazers, community-builders, and legacy-keepers whose influence in their students’ lives—and in the larger dance world—is deep and far-reaching. Stay tuned for the official announcement of this year’s honorees later this month, as well as articles about what makes each of them so special.

Of course, our four Dance Teacher Award winners aren’t the only top-notch educators we’re spotlighting in August. For example, we’ll introduce you to former Pilobolus performer Matt Del Rosario, who created Flow Kākou to share the wisdom and skills he learned on the mainland with his hometown on Kauai. We’ve also interviewed three instructors who continue to teach dance despite having established careers in other industries.

Looking for teaching tips as well as inspiration? In our next Technique & Artistry column, you’ll learn how to guide your students to embrace and succeed in background roles. Whether you’re standing center stage or working hard behind the scenes, Dance Teacher is here to help you shine.

Best,

Kathryn Holmes

kholmes@dancemedia.com

The post Letter From the Editor: Honoring Dance Education’s Brightest Lights appeared first on Dance Teacher.

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.