Ballet in bloom

Neha Sujhani wears many hats — she is a chartered accountant, a former manager with a multinational company and a certified ballet teacher.
Ballet is the love of her life and Neha has certifications from the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing and Royal Academy of Dance — both headquartered in London.

The turning point came in 2016 when she decided to teach ballet full time.“I was working with KPMG in Pune and teaching ballet to some students. As ballet started taking more of my time, I found it difficult to continue with my job, where I was holding a responsible post. So, I quit to pursue my passion,” Sujhani says.
However, teaching ballet was anything but easy. The first hurdle was that there was hardly any knowledge of ballet in the city. “When I told people that I had learnt ballet, they used to ask me, ‘Isn’t that something you do with your stomach?’ They used to confuse it with belly dancing. So I used to tell them belly dancing is different, ballet is done on one’s toes,” she says.
Sujhani put in efforts to spread the knowledge about ballet. “I conducted free workshops for three months. I taught children and gave free demonstration to parents about what ballet is and what their kids will learn,” she says.
There were only a few studios in the city then that taught ballet.
“But I realised their technique wasn’t correct and they were teaching something else in the name of ballet. I was quite disappointed that the students who were enrolled with these studious were not learning the correct technique. Ballet is not something where you stretch a little, jump a little and your classes are done. There are a lot of things that make a ballerina. That is when I decided to set up my academy in the city,” she says.
In December 2016, she launched Les Danseuses Academy of Ballet. “I started with three to four students, but by December 2017, we had around a 100. Now, we have around 200 students,” she says.
At her academy, the students are prepared according to the syllabus of Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) as well as Commonwealth Society of Teachers of Dancing (CSTD). Over the years, interest in ballet has grown in the city. “I now get a lot of enquiries from people belonging to all age groups eager to learn the dance form. My youngest students are three-and-ahalf years of age while the oldest is 30. I have around 10 to 15 students in the age group of 20 to 30. They have never experienced any other dance form, but now they are hooked to ballet. There is a lot of demand for ballet classes.”
However, she rues that ballet training is mostly confined to girls in India, unlike in the West. “We have one male student who is eight. We would like to have more male ballet students in our academy,” she says.
Sujhani is all praise for the allround benefits of ballet. “Apart from building core muscle strength and increasing flexibility, ballet helps in concentration too,” she says.
“While I was doing my chartered accountancy course, I used to study 16 to 17 hours a day, but continued with my ballet lessons too. Even when I slogged 20 hours a day before my exams, I used to practice ballet for an hour. It was such a destressing exercise for me. All I used to do was switch off from all the accounts and law and do ballet. I used to feel refreshed. It was better than sleeping or taking a nap. By God’s grace, I cleared all my exams at one go,” she said.
Ballet has helped her not just IN clearing exams, but in other things in life. “It brings in a lot of grace to a person’s behaviour. I have seen the difference in my students. Many parents have told me that after six to seven months or oneyear of training in ballet, the child becomes graceful and very confident because ballerinas have to do a lot of stage shows, which helps them to get rid of stage fright,” she says.
This year, students from her academy were invited to participate in the World Ballet Cultural Event in Kuala Lumpur. “Ballerinas from all over the world participated in the event and we were the only ones from India,” she says.
The event provided an exposure to her students to the kind of respect ballerinas command across the globe. “Outside India, people understand how much effort and struggle goes into becoming a ballerina. However, in our country people think it is just an extracurricular activity. The kind of respect that my students got when they told people abroad that they were ballerinas from India was tremendous. Even at the airport immigration, they were treated like celebrities,” she says. Students from her institute have also been invited to participate in the Asia-Pacific Dance Competition in Singapore in December this year but since the board of Commonwealth Society Teacher of Dancing (CSTD) will come to the city in November from Australia and Singapore to conduct an examination for students of her academy, it will be too much for them to prepare for both.
“It will be the first time that the board members will come to Pune to conduct the examination and we are really excited about it,” says Sujhani. Her academy is affiliated to both the ISTD as well as CSTD.
“It is very difficult to get affiliation from such prestigious organisations. The first thing they look for is whether the teacher has received proper dance education. I have spent 10 years educating myself. In order to become a certified teacher, one has to clear six levels. Then there are five more levels of advanced training. The teacher training course comes at the last. I have completed all levels,” he says.
For now, she is keen on popularising ballet in the city. “For me, the finance chapter is over. Today, if anyone tells me to do something related to finance, I don’t think I will be able to do it. I really love what I do now,” she says.