GAZELLE MAGAZINE WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH EDITION | Page 78

COMMUNITY & CULTURE
THE MELTING POT
Asha Premachandra
B y T r i s h M u y c o - To b i n
O
ne of Asha Premachandra’s earliest memories is of
dancing to the radio in the living room as her younger
brother was being born in their home in Bangalore,
India. She was 5 years old.
Even in adulthood, as
she raised her own family, there was always
music playing in the Premachandra home
- and it wasn’t unusual to find her in the
kitchen, dancing.
Perhaps the lifelong dancer and teacher
knew it all along: Mastering the art of dance
meant understanding how intrinsically tied
it is to the range of human feelings.
“Dancing makes me happy,” she said.
“I’ve been dancing for a long time - I’ve
always loved danc ing.”
Premachandra and her husband were
newlyweds when they left Bangalore in
the 1960s. Before starting their family, the
couple first worked on getting to know
each other. They were married just 15 days
after meeting, and soon left for the U.S. as
her new husband, Dr. B.N. Premachandra,
a research scientist, found work in St.
Louis. Once here, the young bride realized
that her new home was not the way she
imagined it to be.
“When I was in India, my idea of
America was very glamorous. I watched
the Esther Williams movies where she did
synchronized swimming. I also liked Doris
Day. The movies gave me a very different
idea of the country,” she said. “But when I
came here, I observed that things were very, very quiet.”
Aside from getting used to her new surroundings and to married
life, another big adjustment for Premachandra was learning to cook.
“I didn’t know cooking. In India, my mom or someone else cooked,”
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she explained. “My mom told me to take some recipes with me - she
gave me over 25 recipes she wrote down in a book - but the food
wasn’t the same. It was difficult to adjust.”
While her world may have changed
entirely, there was always one constant:
dance. Premachandra was already a
seasoned performer in her native country
before she came to America. She even
danced for Indian president Sarvepalli
Radhakrishnan as a young girl.
“In South India, I had a close-knit family,
and they were very, very supportive of
dance,” she said. “I used to be in shows and
dance quite a lot - I still do.”
In America, one of the ways Premachandra
pursued her love of dance is by sharing it with
others. With the support of her husband, she
established Dances of India, the first classical
Indian dance company in St. Louis, more
than 40 years ago.
“When I started teaching, I taught
in the basement for quite a few years,”
she recalled. “We also used to go to
different schools to teach, and we did
demonstrations and workshops.”
The dance company’s inaugural
performance was in 1977, and it has
produced a professional show in the fall
every year since then. Premachandra’s
husband later served as president of the
company, and their daughter, Nartana,
succeeded her father in the position
following his death in 2014. Nartana also
writes and produces the company’s performances, along with artistic
co-director Theckla Mehta, one of her mother’s first students.
For her part, Premachandra has worked to preserve and promote
the art of Indian dance in her role as Dances of India’s founder and
“(The dance)
was developed
as a vehicle for
storytelling …
So many of the
things we learn
in life we learn
with time ... You
need spirituality
and the ability to
get in touch with
emotions to get to
a particular level.”