Planning Post 2

I mentioned the importance of dates and theatre booking in my last post. This is really important. The number of people learning Bharatanatyam is on the rise and a lot of them go for an arangetram. This wasn't the case in the yester years. Arangetram was for the seriously inclined dancers who were planning on pursuing this art form as a profession or even semi-profession. However, now,  a lot of them see arangetram as the culmination rather than the beginning of their artistic journey. It is not uncommon to hear of people do their arangetram only to completely stop dancing soon afterwards. There are several reasons for this including intervening high school years, lack of opportuntity, lost interest etc. You may ask how is this discussion relevant to theatre, it is extremely relevant. You see, most students performing arangetrams are kids under the age of 16 (which clearly excludes yours truly but I digress). So the best time for their arangetram is summer when the school is out so they can do a crash course before ascending the stage. That makes the months of June-aug (in US of course) the peak season for arangetrams. With only 13 weekends (or 26 days) and a limited number of theatres suitable for arangetrams and hundreds of students waiting to perform arangetram and be "done with it", finding a theatre is hard. The "good" ones - acoustics, capacity, pricing, location - are often booked 1 year in advance.

If you have a date in august, most school theatres may not open their booking until the school starts (that Aug 2016 dates might not even open up until school reopens Aug 2015). If you choose a date in July, it may be confirmed much earlier since there is least likelihood of conflict with school events. But then july is peak season for people to travel to India, so you may lose a bit of audience. So choose accordingly.