Fay­ola KJ Fras­er

The Shiv Shak­ti Dance Com­pa­ny: “To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak.”

– In­di­an Proverb.

One guar­an­tee es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the Di­vali sea­son is to be cap­ti­vat­ed by mem­o­rable per­for­mances bathed in the sweet sounds, tech­ni­cal pre­ci­sion and vivid beau­ty of the women in the Shiv Shak­ti Dance Com­pa­ny.

This year, as is cus­tom­ary, the Shiv Shak­ti dancers opened the 2023 Di­vali Na­gar on No­vem­ber 5 in mag­nif­i­cent style, with their own in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the theme, ‘Moth­er Earth’. Al­though each Di­vali Na­gar calls for a fresh elab­o­ra­tion of a theme, the mes­sage that the com­pa­ny shared in their pre­sen­ta­tion, through the cre­ative ex­pres­sion of the move­ment of their limbs, was the same as every Di­vali. “Love”, says the com­pa­ny’s founder, Michael Sal­ick­ram, “our mes­sage is al­ways, that through love, any­thing is pos­si­ble”.

Sal­ick­ram formed the Shiv Shak­ti Dance Com­pa­ny in 1987, as sim­ply an out­let and a hob­by to cel­e­brate and share his love for dance. The school start­ed in Su­chit Trace, Pe­nal, but af­ter im­me­di­ate­ly gar­ner­ing wide­spread pop­u­lar­i­ty, it rapid­ly ex­pand­ed. Sal­ick­ram chose to take the school to re­mote and un­der­served ar­eas in Rio Claro, Princes Town, Tu­na­puna, and Aranguez, to al­low peo­ple who want­ed to dance the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be able to, with­out be­ing lim­it­ed by the cost and lo­gis­tics of trans­porta­tion.

Carib Brew­ery was the com­pa­ny’s first spon­sor, and re­mained as a spon­sor for ten years, fol­lowed by Cli­co, Bmo­bile and Zee TV. Even as the school start­ed grow­ing with gen­er­ous spon­sor­ship, it re­mained a tight-knit com­mu­ni­ty, with one of the first lead dancers mar­ry­ing Sal­ick­ram’s broth­er, and their daugh­ter be­com­ing one of the lead dancers at present.

“What start­ed off as a hob­by, turned in­to a ca­reer,” Sal­ick­ram re­mem­bers pen­sive­ly, as the Shiv Shak­ti Dance Com­pa­ny has now grown to a va­ri­ety of of­fer­ings, in­clud­ing yo­ga, fash­ion and de­sign, make­up, phil­an­thropy and mu­sic, res­onat­ing with peo­ple be­yond the In­do-Trinida­di­an com­mu­ni­ty.

In 1991, Sal­ick­ram blend­ed the tra­di­tion­al In­di­an dance of the Shiv Shak­ti Com­pa­ny with the tra­di­tion­al folk dance of the Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ing Com­pa­ny. The twin­ning of these two com­pa­nies and styles of dance was a na­tion­al nov­el­ty that un­der­pinned his com­mit­ment to spread­ing the mes­sage of the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of dance, and his be­lief that al­though dif­fer­ent, cul­tures could not sim­ply blend har­mo­nious­ly, but cre­ate mag­i­cal cul­tur­al prod­ucts as a re­sult.

Sal­ick­ram high­lights that al­though the group is found­ed on In­do-Trinida­di­an cul­ture, it spans oth­er cul­tures, “tak­ing the In­di­an rhythms and mak­ing it in­to some­thing Caribbean”. The groups’ per­for­mance of the Ganges and the Nile sky­rock­et­ed the com­pa­ny to na­tion­al pop­u­lar­i­ty, with Rud­der’s re­frain of “Dif­fer­ences, there will al­ways be so that you’ll be you, and I’ll be me. That’s the damn thing that makes it sweet,” pro­vid­ing a fit­ting back­drop to their per­for­mances.

Sal­ick­ram and the Shiv Shak­ti Dance Com­pa­ny have amassed great ac­claim lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, and he “con­sid­ers it an ho­n­our and a priv­i­lege to show­case my coun­try”. The Shiv Shak­ti dancers won lo­cal com­pe­ti­tions such as Scout­ing for Tal­ent in 1991 and Mas­tana Ba­har in 1992. The com­pa­ny re­ceived the Cha­co­nia Sil­ver in 2004 for Sal­ick­ram’s out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to cul­ture in T&T. Sal­ick­ram is the first and on­ly Trinida­di­an to chore­o­graph dances for Bol­ly­wood, with his chore­og­ra­phy in the film “Dul­ha Mil Gaya”, fea­tur­ing leg­endary Bol­ly­wood ac­tor Shah Rukh Khan. The dance com­pa­ny was al­so fea­tured on Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic, “Lit­tle In­dia”, and Sal­ick­ram re­calls that Shiv Shak­ti Com­pa­ny was ap­proached as soon as they de­cid­ed to film in T&T.

Al­though there is some­times crit­i­cism of chut­ney mu­sic and danc­ing, Sal­ick­ram en­sures that his com­pa­ny does not en­gage in over-sex­u­alised or deroga­to­ry danc­ing. “Chut­ney is some­thing spicy, that you put in sa­heena to tin­gle your taste buds,” he jokes, “it should be some­what sen­su­al, but nev­er vile.” He is not on­ly a chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, and dancer, but al­so is com­mit­ted to re­search, en­sur­ing songs and their gen­e­sis are re­spect­ed in his mu­sic choic­es, the art of dance and his dancers. Sal­ick­ram al­so cares deeply about his com­mu­ni­ty, of­fer­ing sup­port to tem­ples, and of­fer­ing per­for­mances at events that dri­ve fundrais­ing ef­forts for good caus­es. Dancers in his com­pa­ny pay on­ly a small fee to en­sure that the school re­mains ac­ces­si­ble to all.

“Once you could come in a pram, you can join,” Sal­ick­ram laughs, as they ac­cept dancers as soon as they are ready to join, re­gard­less of age. Head­quar­tered in Cou­va, when stu­dents join the school, they first are taught tech­niques, then go through ex­ams, and even­tu­al­ly grad­u­ate to the B com­pa­ny and the per­form­ing com­pa­ny. He en­cour­ages peo­ple from any back­ground, even those with spe­cial needs to join if they are so moved. Re­mem­ber­ing one stu­dent who was deaf-mute, he en­sured she was ac­com­mo­dat­ed, and teach­ers and dancers wore danc­ing bells in the class, teach­ing her by the vi­bra­tions of the bells. “She then en­tered ju­nior com­pe­ti­tions,” he says, “and won all of them!” Ed­u­ca­tion, not on­ly in dance, re­mains a cru­cial tenet of the Shiv Shak­ti Dance Com­pa­ny, and he en­cour­ages girls sit­ting CXC, CAPE or any im­por­tant ex­am­i­na­tions to take the time to fo­cus pri­mar­i­ly on their aca­d­e­mics and school­ing. The girls sup­port one an­oth­er in their school­work, in danc­ing, emo­tion­al­ly and men­tal­ly, he says, “It’s al­ways one set of chat­ting, bac­cha­nal, la couray and laugh­ing.”

Sal­ick­ram is of­ten asked what is his se­cret to grow­ing the ex­po­nen­tial suc­cess of the com­pa­ny and main­tain­ing peace and co­he­sion among the dancers, staff and fam­i­lies. “Love,” he says again, “love for the cul­ture will unite us all.”

Re­mem­ber­ing a mo­ment in traf­fic many years ago, see­ing one of his stu­dents af­ter class walk­ing with her moth­er in the rain, he was over­come, grasp­ing the mon­u­men­tal task with which he was be­ing en­trust­ed. “Peo­ple come from all over,” he mus­es, “through all kinds of rain and con­di­tions, to make their chil­dren hap­py, and make their dreams come true.” From its in­cep­tion, the Shiv Shak­ti Dance Com­pa­ny has ho­n­oured that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to mak­ing dreams come true, with tire­less work and ded­i­ca­tion to the ad­vance­ment of our rich, com­plex and unique cul­ture in T&T.