Smt. Alokananda Roy, a celebrated Indian classical dancer, choreographer, trainer, social reformer, dance educationist and therapist, was a student of Modern High School – where later taught for several years – and at Shri Sikshayatan College, where she was a gold medallist. Formally trained in Bharat Natyam and Odissi, she is best known for her innovative dancing styles and creative stage productions. Her formal training includes a Diploma in Rabindra Sangeet from Dakshinee, a Diploma in pianoforte from Trinity College London, and rigorous training in Classical Ballet from the Calcutta School of Music. She has
also been a category ‘A’ artist of Doordarshan since 1976.
Her landmark social reform work – on which she is going to speak tonight – began around 2000. Soon thereafter, she became associated with social reform through dance therapy in West Bengal Correctional Homes. This blossomed into a pioneering initiative to reform, realign and rehabilitate convicts in the state correctional homes, since 2007. For the same purpose, in 2010 she conceptualized and formed ‘Touch World’, a non-profit organization for reform and rehabilitation of prisoners and their families. The organization is also providing care and education to the children of the inmates of the Alipore Women’s Correctional Home.
Recently she has started training juvenile offenders in dance therapy for realigning their lives. She is also using dance as a therapy for specially-abled children and for Parkinson’s disease patients and it is showing a marked effect. She has been the Brand Ambassador of Parkinson’s Diseases Patients Welfare Society, Dignity Foundation, Unmesh
– a center for specially-abled children, Save The Children, and the Mother and Child Project
– Kolkata chapter. She has traveled to Japan with underprivileged children no fewer than five times.
She has started two new initiatives since 2019, dance therapy for the transgender community and for the Acid Attack Survivors of West Bengal.
As a performing artist and social reformer, Smt. Alokananda Roy has received many prestigious awards, including the highest State Award, ‘Bongo Bibhushan’ in 2014, an Honorary D.Litt. degree from Diamond Harbor Women’s University, the West Bengal ‘State Academy Award’, the ‘Bharat Nirman’ Award, the ‘Devi Award’, the ‘SHE Award’, and the ‘True Legend’ Recognition by The Telegraph. She is an Honorary citizen of New York City and Clarksville, U.S.A.
As I began by saying, over the last two decades, Smt. Alokananda Roy has been actively involved in using cultural practices inside Correction Homes with both male and female inmates. Key to this stellar work is the process around how love, care, music, and dance come together in a tapestry of incidents, anecdotes and feelings. Over the last two decades of her work inside Kolkata’s Presidency Correctional Home and Alipore Women’s Correctional Home, nearly 200 inmates have been released, and nearly none has ever gone back to crime, which is unparalleled in any such work across the world. For this work, she has been honoured by the Indian Postal Service, who in 2019 released a Collector’s Edition ‘Alakananda Roy Personal Postage Stamp’ and a Special Cover in honor of ‘Love Therapy’, her Correctional Home project.
Some of the most intriguing questions relating to her landmark work would be – What is in her touch that has made such a miracle possible? What has been her personal journey? Where does this amazing body of work stand today in terms of sustainability? How could you be of help in sustaining this inspiring work around crime reduction and prison reform? How could this body of work be archived and showcased, so that the world around us – torn apart by violence and rage – could find solace? We seek to get some answers to these compelling questions in this evening’s conversation with Alokananda.
