Arangetram Dancers Project

You might be wondering what Arangetram is. Well, it is a Indian Classical dance graduation where you have to dance in front of a huge audience for over 3 hours. My mom did it, and I can only imagine how tiring it must be.


Anyway, our friend was having her dance graduation a couple days ago, and we decided to make her a present. We were out of ideas until we saw a frame portraying dancers in poses that our mom's friend had presented to our mom at the time of her Arangetram . We thought it would be nice to make and frame a similar gift, so we did. 


We decided to make the dancers out of clay. It took 2-3 hours on each doll, and my sister and I split the work evenly. Although we did end up fighting a little, (well, what are sisters for?) every single doll turned out great. In the meantime, we asked our dad to help us with a doll case, or frame for them. It was an amazing experience having to create new ways and methods that would work for us, and make the dolls look as realistic as possible. Our dad was so impressed with the intricate clay dolls that he was worried that we will accidentally mess them up while handling them and end up wasting the long time we spent making them.

When the time came for us to make the final touch ups and bake the clay dolls, we had to carry them to another area in the house. While doing that, our dad was watching us like a hawk to make sure that we didn't mess them up, and while we were carrying them, we had to be so delicate with them so they wouldn't bend, fall, or break. 

Our dad was even more scared when we started to bake them. The oven that we always used to use to bake things would sometimes burn our clay things up, so we decided to use a new oven which we hadn't ever used to bake clay. To make sure the oven wouldn't burn our clay creation, before we put our masterpieces in, we baked some other small clay things. None were the size of the dolls, so we were tense the whole time they baked. But our calculations ended up correct and the dolls came out all right. We were overjoyed, but had to make sure we didn't drop them, or they would definately break. 

Our dad packaged the frame in a box with lots of paper, bubble wrap, and foam to ensure that they were secure and safe. The only bad part about that was that if the frame did break, we wouldn't have any sign that anything had happened to it until our friend opened the box. Luckily, while we were in Atlanta or driving around, nothing happened to our precious cargo, much to our relief when we reached Charlotte. 

 
We finally got to give it to our friend, and she loved it. When we told her that we made it, she was speechless with joy, and pleasure. It felt so good to have given someone a handmade present, and the fact that she loved it was even more reassuring. 
 


I am so glad we got the experience to create something never made before specially for a friend, and now I know, that no matter how much I fight with my sister, it has never felt better to have someone to work with.