Dancing is Haleem Khan’s passion. It is also a language that he speak best as an artist. To him all art is an attempt to create beautiful things. “To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim”, Haleem is impressed by these famous words, and constantly aims to realize that. With stage as a canvas, music giving form and rhythm, Classical Dance is an essay and outpouring of feelings – at once a performance but also as an art form comes very close to life.
Right from his childhood days, Classical dance form of Kuchipudi fascinated Haleem. Movies were his primary source of inspiration. Long before he fully comprehended the obstacles that had to be faced, Haleem had set his goals to pursue learning Kuchipudi. Obstacles were many cornered – personal, family, religious bias, financial and conservative milieu surrounding this classical art form. He was fortunate to have found his guru, Sri Kaza Venkata Subhramanyam garu, who spotted him and gave guidance to his passion.
Haleem has performed in more than 800 solo and group dance shows in India and abroad. Besides shows and performances, he has a vast experience in teaching dance, choreographing both conventional and fusion, conducting workshops for grips both private and corporate. Haleem enjoyed immense success on his recent road shows in the United States and Malaysia, and immensely enjoy travelling and continuous learning that comes from that.
More recently he was handpicked as an artist / speaker / performer by INK – to open and interact in their recent conference in Mumbai. A renowned film maker has produced a documentary on Haleem’s life – bringing out the diversity he has in him – passion for dance, religious background, and people in his life. This would be premiered at a film festival in Calcutta this month.
The passion, innovation and excellence of dance is ingrained in him. His innovation can be seen through many of his performances where he has intertwined poetry and music (both English and Urdu) with dance, or he has fused ballet with Kuchipudi. Haleem can effortlessly bring out the aggression of Lord Shiva as he does the Thandavam, or can take the audience inside a woman’s heart who is romancing her man through his Jaavali!
Natural as he is in preforming arts, Haleem has acted in films very successfully.
Haleem had been passionate in looking at a broad canvas. To look inside the psyche of this artist, and what drives him, is perhaps the innate desire to in many ways preserve this ancient dance form. Where dance cannot reach many due to the pressures of modern day life, constraints in access to resources; Haleem has produced a sophisticated Dance Instructional DVD. Haleem has taken upon himself the shades and nuances to hold on to and propagate the ancient tradition when female dancers did not take to stage, and female impersonation was popular; Haleem is amongst the few male dancers who can don the female role effortlessly leaving the audience mesmerized. The jig saw puzzle fits – Haleem’s passion as a male dancer to preserve and propagate this this centuries old dance.
Ambition has no end, and Haleem has been blessed by many gurus and very senior artists and veterans, that he will go a long way. The sky is the limit.
