Dancer Astad Deboo trained kids from Delhi's Salaam Balak Trust to put up a show of contemporary dance that opens at NCPA today. Here he tells you what to expect

Raju Kumar at rehearsal. Pic/ Rajeev Tyagi

For as long as people have been able to walk they have been dancing. The Romans, the Greeks, the cave men, the Indians. All of us love to dance. Whenever I travel around the world, I meet (and see) young people who dare to dance. And some of them dance in new and novel ways. That's how I started to interact with the street children in Delhi. 14 tough kids.

I began workshopping. Weeks of back-breaking sessions. 1-2-3-4. Stretching the architecture of the body. Exploring space. I had to deprogram the Bollywood moves, the jhatkas and matkas and inculcate the virtue of minimalism. It was a slow and tentative journey through the rasas and the mudras.

A majority of them were young boys who were seeking some way (any which way) to express themselves.

Those few hours on the dance floor became a form of making a statement. They were eager to show everyone their new skills and earn respect. And the key (for me) was, it was a new generation of dancers who enlarged the circle of people who danced the dance so as to include all races and economic classes. We learnt how to mark our turf. We learnt to plunge into the future and not look back. That's how the piece was structured. The piece opens with solitude which reaches out. Then there is a bit of energy.

At:u00a0October 1, 2 and 3 at 7 pm. At Experimental Theatre, National Centre For Performing Arts, Nariman Point. Tickets: Rs 300 and Rs 200.