From sole to soul

Through Victory Arts Foundation (VAF), his not-for-profit organization, dancer Shiamak Davar is committed to making dance a meaningful experience for everyone. VAF endeavors to use the power of the performing arts to bring joy to underprivileged, especially challenged, visually impaired or terminally ill children and young adults.

Inaugurated in March 2004, VAF continues to touch the lives of over 1,000 children and adults with special needs across 45 centers all over India. Bringing a smile to their faces and adding a bounce in their stride, VAF takes Davar’s mission statement, ‘Have Feet, Will Dance,’ one step further to ‘Have Spirit, Will Triumph.’

VAF trustees include founder Davar, Glen D’Mello, chief executive officer for Shiamak Davar’s Institute for the Performing Arts (SDIPA) and Mahaza­rine Canteen­walla, general manager for SDIPA.

VAF classes are focused towards improving self-esteem and building self-awareness among children with special needs, the poor and needy, through the performing arts. VAF also provides medical support, and upholds outstanding talent in performing arts and sports.

The foundation for VAF was laid in November 2001, when SDIPA along with the Committed Communities Development Trust (CCDT), formed a partnership to implement the Dancing Feat (DF) program. With a goal to enhance the ability of vulnerable children to respond effectively to situations that place them at a high risk to HIV/AIDS, Dancing Feat adopted a unique, child-friendly strategy which combined popular dance forms along with group counseling and life skills education.

With their first faltering steps, some of the children and their parents had reservations about their ability to dance, but with constant encouragement they were able to overcome their inhibitions and enjoy the experience so much that it has now become an inherent part of their lives. Today, the VAF’s objective is to spread joy, use dance as therapy. Donations are utilized to fund dance programs, classes, performances and events for underprivileged, physically and mentally challenged children and adults.

VAF has also reached out to adults suffering from schizophrenia, depression, paranoia, hallucination and similar mental illnesses. Davar’s instructors are trained in dance and drama therapy so that they are able to communicate, train and deal effectively with people with special needs.

Spreading the joy of dance: Shiamak Daver (top) with children of VAF

The Foundation has been associated with NGOs like The Helen Keller Institute for the Deaf and the Deafblind, Spastic Society of India, Akanksha Foundation, Society for the Education of the Crippled, Tamanna Foundation, Thalassemia India, Freedom Foundation, National Association for the Blind, Hope Foundation and many more. Through VAF funded programs, Davar and his instructors continue to empower students with confidence and self-belief. VAF gives them an opportunity that many would not have dreamt of.

Early in 2007, Davar’s VAF made a big splash at the Mumbai Marathon. Thousands of students and SDIPA instructors danced through the Dream Run, proudly sporting bright red VAF tee-shirts, expressing their support. Wheelchair bound children from Sankalp, a center for the mentally challenged, represented VAF in the marathon’s Wheelchair event.

In February 2007 Davar choreographed items for the children of the Society for the Education of the Crippled (SEC) to perform at the annual police games in Thane.

In April 2007 Plan India invited VAF to perform at the Plan Utsav where street children from the Doorstep Foundation performed to well-known Bollywood numbers and took many a celebrity by surprise with their energetic dance moves.

VAF students, taught by SDIPA instructors, are helped to discover and enjoy creative expression through dance. SDIPA continues to teach jazz, hip hop, rock n roll, Afro jazz, salsa, Shiamak’s Indo jazz and Shiamak’s Bollywood jazz styles of dance. It conducts dance classes in 13 cities across India, reaching out to thousands of people. Students, four to 84 years old, of all shapes and sizes, specially the challenged and visually impaired — all are a part of this disciplined, professional but most of all, fun institute.

Davar invites one and all to come forward and extend support in this drive to spread joy through the power of dance. VAF is happy to share this information with you and looks forward to your support, so that we can continue to ‘pay it forward’ and share our blessings with millions of others who are less fortunate. For more information write to info@shiamak.com or call 23537930/37.

Edited and extracted from a report prepared by the Victory Arts Foundation for Parsiana.