It’s a morning session at an classroom in Alliance University, Bengaluru, as a person in professional attire comes in the midst of the assembled students with a laptop in hand. While the morning sessions are spent by the person giving classes to MBA students at the university, the afternoon session are spent on giving dance lessons. A person who travels through different fields in life, Vasanth Kiran is one of the foremost name in the field of classical art forms, in the field of Bharathanatyam and Kuchipudi. He holds Ph.D, Mphil and MBA degrees from Marshall University, USA in classical arts and is a professor in Marketing.
Passionate about dance from a young age, Vasanth began his dance career at the age of six. He has gone through many other gurus including Vempati Chinna Satyam, Padma Subramaniam and C V Chandrasekhar.
“I have always carried on with dance almost my life. I took MBA because I wanted to prove that career wise, there are no limitations to what a person can achieve”, said Vasanth Kiran. Besides being an active board member in several universities, he is also an external examiner to Bengaluru University, Nalanda Mumbai University, Gamdharva Mahavidyalaya and so on. Currently the doctorate holder is the head of the department, Department of Performing Arts, Alliance University, Bengaluru. He has also conducted many workshops in India and abroad.
Having performed in many countries like the UK, USA, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia and Russia, he has had experiences with a varied kind of audience. “I have seen a number of students in every part of the world who know classical dance forms, but unfortunately they lack quality. Nowadays, children learn dance and music only for youth festivals. Once they get a title from these festivals and eventually a seat for medicine or engineering, they drop it then and there,” said Vasanth.
Being totally against this notion, he chooses to be different even while teaching dance to his students. Stating that classical art forms are not mere marketing products, Vasanth adds, “I never teach my students in the capsule form. I want them to know the dance in depth, and I urge them to learn by themselves. I also conduct workshops for them with eminent dancers so that they can interact with them and have a first hand experience”.
Vasanth, who has proved to be efficient in both fine arts and marketing, is also a visiting faculty for the University of Pisa, Italy, Goethe University in Germany and Paris school of Business.
Besides being a professor in marketing, Vasanth Kiran holds PhD, Mphil and MBA degrees in classical arts
He has performed in several countries around the world