Voyage Dallas Interview
Today we’d like to introduce you to Karma Chuki.
Hi Karma, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I come from a very small country called Bhutan where education is considered a vital aspect of our lives to have a successful career/employment.
I have never been the one to fit into the norms of my society, to fall in love and follow the academia side of things nor was I clear on what path I wanted to take in life. My focus was mostly on other co-curricular activities such as, basketball, dance concerts, performing arts etc.
Dance always made sense and brought joy in my life, as it does to many artist around us.
At the age of 24, I realised I could not do an ordinary life with a 9-5 job and that was the turning point in my dance career as I set out to look for opportunities out of my country as the dance profession was at its infancy stages in the country. One thing was clear that I would have to work extra hard to find my place in the dance profession – if I wanted to take it as a sole career – as I was a late comer in the profession and many dance professionals around the world start at a very young age.
From the get-go I knew what I was getting myself into and my first every dance journey started in a dance school in New Delhi, India. I had to convince my parents to send me off for a career change at 24 and it was not easy. Dance at the time was a profession that was unheard of and no Bhutanese had taken the profession as a career in live. Although it was a very difficult decision myself and my parents had to make, they believed in me and had supported my decision through and through from the beginning.
I left my country without any form of training or education in the field of dance, but with a lot of passion, determination, and courage. To this day, I truly believe that my ‘passion’ and ‘determination’ stands at the top of my skills set that allows me to reach for perfection and fulfillment.
The narrative for me as a late comer in the dance profession was that I was the least flexible, the one with the least experience of any kind (performance, education, etc), the oldest and the list went on, and personally, I took that as my challenge to reverse the narrative and become a well-learned and trained professional with precision and focus.
One of my secret to overcoming all challenges were to work extra hard, by this I mean, extra-extra-extra hard that included lots of extra time before and after each class, correcting myself over and over again and working day in and out to perfect my body and mind first. Keeping an open mind and a focused mindset to grabbing every opportunities coming in my way was the key to grow faster.
I started as a student in February 2012, got the opportunity to perform in a Bollywood musical theatre in 2013, and from 2013 October to 2020 February, I was teaching in a dance academy called the Danceworx Performing Arts Academy, performed for over 100 shows, assisted and choreographed dance pieces and I was dancing with a touring contemporary company, Navdhara India Dance Theatre as a soloist and as a dancer in three 1 hour repertoire productions and a 7minutes duet.
From March 2020, I came to New York to broaden my dance education and find opportunities to grow more as an artist.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
My first and foremost challenge was to leave my country and my family to go around the world to find my purpose and fulfill my dreams. Second, is that I started dancing at the age of 24. I have always been the oldest in every opportunity that came to me through dance, such as, in auditions, teachings, or being in a company. Everywhere I applied, I would always be the oldest in a room full of teenagers or young dancers aged between 20-25. This proved to be a challenge for me. And, why I considered this as a challenge was and is because most of my teachers have always voiced the fact that after 30 years of age it becomes impossible to be accepted by dance companies. I worked extremely hard to alter such narratives and I can now rightly say that “impossible is in your hands if you can strive for it”. I have pioneered as one of the main soloists in a touring contemporary company in Mumbai, India at the age of 26 years with the company I was with for 7 years.
Traveling to and living in a new country/environment takes a lot of patience to adapt to new cultures and different ways of living and working with dancers from varying backgrounds has also played a vital part in my career as an emerging dancer as this factor has made me stronger in every way to be able to adapt and learn with every new opportunities.
Making decisions at the right time in your life matters inevitably. I have had many struggles as a late comer in this profession from starting from scratch as the oldest dance, leaving a company/place who knows me and my strength as a dancer in depth, and venturing out to a completely new environment/company to start again, etc. etc. have all contributed to my growth and professionalism as an artist.
One thing I have realised after coming to NYC is that being a woman is more challenging as there are many female dancers here in New York. For example, every audition I go to there are 180 female and 20 male auditioning. Simultaneously, most of the companies here are looking for male dancers. The competition bar is so high up that one has no other option but to strive for perfection in that big pool of female dancers.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As much I as love every form of dance, I specialize in Contemporary form of art/dance because I love to improvise and tell stories with the movement of my body. Maybe one day I would love have my own company where there is love, compassion, understanding, and one can find space for creation and be able to help the mental well-being of many people in need in our communities. I sometimes use dance as my therapy, and in the process, I find myself at ease, happy and positive. Dance to me is more than just an art form or a profession, it is a holistic way of spreading love and a way of existing.
I feel as a dancer or an artist, it is vital to know one’s space and the message we try to convey through that form of expression. One thing I undeniably love about my work as a dancer, is that I believe every human being has their own journeys and the ways to tell one’s own stories and experiences, but when we come to one room and share our stories, we are all the same because we all have experienced love, hate, hurt, trauma, neglect, and so on. The stories and the journeys may be different, but we all experience every emotion that there is in our human life. That becomes even more beautiful when we can communicate that with our art and reach out to our audience.
In my experience as a dancer and in the process of finding myself and fighting my own demons, I have realized that once I am in peace with all sides of me, I can be/am clearer with my movements and am able to just be and not pretend to be what others perceive me to be. When I am in my zone, especially before I go on stage, I always think that I am dancing my best and I think there are no audience and that I am sharing my story rather than performing a show.
How do you think about luck?
I would say, there is no good luck or bad luck. I believe in making the right decision at the right time with the right kind of people in your life and with utmost resilience, motivation, and passion. This is pretty much 95% of my story to becoming who I am today. You need to keep your mind open, follow your instinct and importantly know your “why”.
