An Initiative to Support Gaza's Children Through Art

Interview with Aranyani Bhargav

In this feature we interview with Bharatanatyam dancer, Choreographer and Teacher Aranyani Bhargav, who has initiated the campaign "Indian Dancers for Gaza’s Children." This initiative brings together dancers from across the country to raise awareness and support for the children affected by the ongoing crisis in Gaza. Aranyani’s efforts highlight the power of dance as a medium for social change and compassion.

What inspired you to start the initiative - 'Indian Dancers for Gaza’s Children' ?

More than inspired, I think Donovan and I (the founders of IDGC) were jolted into starting this initiative. For months and months, we had watched the horrors in Palestine unfold helplessly. And while we were furiously sharing posts and stories on social media, talking about it with our families and within our circles, we were also stunned by what seemed like silence about it within the Indian artistic community. As each day passed, I found it harder and harder to stay ‘silent’. It was difficult to work, dance, breathe – as news piled up about how innocent civilians were being massacred by the dozens on a daily basis. What was particularly disturbing was the targeting of innocent children, who neither orchestrated nor perpetrated this unprecedented violence, but had somehow become its central targets. Donovan and I, over a phone call, lamented about the silence in India regarding these atrocities and came up with the idea of trying to mobilise the Indian classical dance community (I am a bharatanatyam dancer from Bangalore and Donovan is a scholar of Indian dance from South Africa) to come together to raise their voices against the violence against children in Gaza. That’s how IDGC was born around 3 months ago. 

It started out as an initiative for Indian dancers, but rapidly became a global movement with people from all walks of life around the globe adding their voice to the cause, and contributing in some way. IDGC now has over 650 people in solidarity with the children of Gaza and other conflict-ridden regions of the world. Over 300 of these are dancers and the rest come from various other artistic and other professions from 27 different countries of the world.

We decided to launch a series of solidarity events consisting of performances throughout India and the world to raise awareness about and funds for children in Gaza who have been severely injured in the war. So far many solidarity events in India and fundraisers outside of India have taken place under IDGC.

Our aims are strictly humanitarian. And while we are a collective that opposes all violence against innocent people, regardless of nationality, region, religion, caste or creed, we feel that the Palestinian children are currently the most in need and have the least support from the global community. As the conflict shows no signs of abating, and in fact, seems to be intensifying with more and more devastating attacks on civilians, we feel that this movement needs to be a sustained and ongoing one, and we are working towards that currently.

As an artist, how has this initiative influenced your own work and perspective on art?

As an artist, I currently feel quite paralysed by the scale and brutality of the violence. In light of that, this initiative has provided me with an opportunity to connect dance with this crucial humanitarian crisis and given me a sense of meaningful artistic purpose at a time when it makes no sense to me to actually dance, really. Seeing what is happening in Palestine makes it very difficult for me to even find a reason to dance. But dance is an integral part of who I am and have been for over 30 years. So it made sense for me to intertwine the two – the part of me that lives and breathes dance, and the part of me that is unable to live or breathe freely because of the horrors that are unfolding in Gaza. I would say that that is how this initiative has influenced my work currently.

With regard to my perspective on art, I was recently discussing this with my father who is a political theorist, and we talked about how as artists and human beings, at the very least, we would like to see ourselves as moral beings. Therefore, if there is a moral crisis in society – whether it is because of sustained conflict or oppression such as inequality, injustice, intolerance, corruption, hunger or starvation or a sudden and extreme crisis such as war or a wave of violence based on gender, caste, race, ethnicity – artists do have a social responsibility to respond to these ills of society as it crosses the threshold of minimal decency. In the case of what’s happening to the children of Gaza, this threshold was crossed many months ago.

Great artists have honed their skills and trained themselves to see and show things in a certain way. If artists do not perform this role of showing the mirror to society once in a while, then they are not realising their full potential and they are missing out on performing a very important role that they could be performing, and missing out on a great opportunity to do so through their art.

When something goes very wrong in society, an artist should be ready to speak up about these ills in society. Because art does not exist in isolation from its surroundings. In fact, great art and great artists respond to their surroundings.

Great poets like Kabir and Nanak did not shy away from speaking about the ills of society through their poetry. Great novelists like Ananthamurthy and playwrights like Girish Karnad also used their art and their words to comment upon the societies that they existed in. The famous poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz wrote lullabies for Palestinian children orphaned by the war in the 1980s. But words aren’t necessarily all that artists can utilize for this – painters use their canvases. Picasso painted the Guernica as an immediate reaction to the Nazi's devastating bombing on the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War and Francisco Goya’s series of etchings The Disasters of War (1810–14) records the horrors of the Napoleonic invasion. Musicians have used their music. Bob Dylan wrote ‘Hurricane’ in response to Rubin Hurricane Carter’s wrongful accusation and incarceration because of his race. The Beatles and Pink Floyd are also world famous music bands that have repeatedly commented on society through their music. In fact, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd and the American rapper Macklemore have been very active in voicing their protest against the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. As for us dancers, we can use our bodies and our movement vocabularies to raise our voices against the evils in our society.

How can people support or get involved with your initiative?

First and foremost, people can support this initiative by adding their names to our solidarity list of over 650 people. A collective voice is much stronger than a singular one, and is much more likely to be heard. And this is why we continue to urge people to add their names/voices. They can do so by emailing us at indiandancersforgaza@gmail.com. 

Another way for people to support and get involved with this initiative is to attend our solidarity events across India and the world. IDGC solidarity events have already taken place in Pune, Bangalore and Goa in India and in France and Canada through June and July. There are more IDGC solidarity events scheduled to take place in Ahmedabad, Bombay, New Delhi, Calcutta and more are being organised in other cities in India. Further, IDGC events are scheduled to take place in USA, Canada and Poland as well. Details of these can be found on our Instagram and facebook pages.

We also welcome people to approach us with proposals to organise more events in their cities to sustain the movement, which hopes to continue to raise awareness about conflicts that are gravely affecting innocent children around the globe. They can email us with these proposals and we are happy to help organise these to the best of our ability.

Finally, helping us to spread the word about these solidarity events and the initiative in general would be another wonderful way to support us and get involved with IDGC.

Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience or the initiative?

I’d just like to say that Donovan and I have been amazed by the response to IDGC so far. What we thought was silence amongst the dance community of India has not turned out to be silence at all. Whenever people come and thank us for starting this initiative, I always tell them that we just lit the match. The symbolic fire that has been created by IDGC across the globe is due to the hundreds of people who resonated with our vision and cause, many of whom have proactively helped us organise and have conducted and executed workshops, performances, plays, film screenings, story-telling sessions for children to make this a truly global and meaningful movement. We are immensely grateful to every single one of these people for putting their hearts and souls into our vision, owning it as their own and coming together to raise their voices for the voiceless children, who’s screams and cries have gone unheard by so many people for so many months.

Indian Dancers for Gaza’s Children on Social Media :

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/indiandancersforgazaschildren?igsh=MThjNWhpaGJiMGY1aA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61559836387364&mibextid=LQQJ4d

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