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Monday, March 01, 2004
Radically Refined : Sharmini Winslow Interviewer : Dawn Fung "We (me and my husband) feel that if you want to preach the gospel, do it with your actions and not only with words. At least show what you mean. Don't sit in your church and talk about it. " An ex-professional dancer, Sharmini Winslow owns Dance Connections, a dance studio that has been extensively reviewed in newspapers for its pilates courses and its dynamic founder. Sharmini was also the founder of Christian Dance Fellowship Singapore (CDFS), an eclectic group of dancers who provide networking, support and classes for using dance in worship. I met Sharmini once. That was at a pilates class she led in a week long dance camp by the CDFS. It was during that camp that I genuinely felt the Holy Spirit moving my body. To be meeting and interviewing Sharmini seemed like I was putting another jigsaw puzzle in place. Dawn : How did the Christian Dance Fellowship start? Sharmini : I was the founding Coordinator, because we did not like the word 'president'. It’s a long story and mixed up with my testimony. I was a christian as a teenager, fell away from God, returned to him and started teaching in singapore. That was when I used Christian music in my classes. One day, a student came to me and said, 'I kept hearing the song that you played during the stretches...Can you take me to church?' I was like, 'Huh? You want to go to church?' At the altar call at St Andrew's Cathedral, she went up to receive Christ. I was amazed. Dawn : How did that lead to CDF? Sharmini : I had these dance classes but I was also getting injuries. I felt God saying, 'Stop dancing, your focus is wrong.' Dawn : what was the wrong focus? Sharmini : I was always a performer and I always liked the lime light...but the whole thing was about me. God wanted to transform that into something more powerful. I stopped dancing for a year and went to bible school. When the dean of the bible school asked me for a dance, I refused. However that dance was the first time I used sign language. I've never had such an anointing on my dancing before, it was like the Holy Spirit carrying me. People would cry when I danced. The Creative Arts Ministry at that time brought in Randall Bain who was a mime and dance artist. Randall did something about Moses and the burning bush. I thought I've never seen someone do that before and I went up to him crying! He gave me a flyer about the International Dance Fellowship Conference. When I got there, it blew my mind away. I was seeing christian artists gathering together doing workshops and performances, from all the over the world. For example there was an Indian storytelling dancer and that was worship! I was inspired and thought that the dancers in singapore need to get together to get encouraged and give them an outlet to do something. So I returned full on but nothing happened. My landlord, Helen, came up to me and said, you know Sharmini, i think you're the one to start up this Christian Dance Fellowship...what are you doing sitting at home here? Get up and do it. We started with a basic committee that included Rev. Daniel Tong, a worship leader who was interested in dance as a form of worship, Michelle Samuels who is doing Bolivian dance worship and I. Karen Sudds who I brought to Christ in my class is currently the coordinator of the CDF in Canada. We were not doing well in administration, and it took one year to register the thing! We had no money for our first conference. Helen donated our seed fund of $1000. We printed the T-shirts and got the Anglican retreat centre. I designed the brochures myself and mailed it out to all the churches and did not know if people would come. 140 came for the one week conference and we had a mad catholic guy who taught dramatic dance and dance for men. And we had the group from Australia called Harvest Dance and Mary Jones, founder of the international dance fellowship. We had to raise funds for their airfare and accomodation etc. Dawn : Wow... how did you raise the funds? Sharmini : The people who came all paid for the conference and we had a concert at the church of singapore and we took a love offering. We met all our expenses and we had a couple of thousand leftover! God is so good.... yeah..Before the conference, we were all worried that we would not have enough money and considered sponsorship. I had always been inspired by George Mueller and I said, I want see God do this. And God did! Everyone was amazed and that was the beginning of the CDFS. So you headed it for how long? I headed this for 7 years. Then my husband was posted to Melbourne for a year. And I saw other leaders being so obsessed with their ministries that I felt that I needed to let go of this ministry. I passed it to the committee and said, 'You guys have to carry on. It's scary, Dawn but I think it went to a different direction.' Dawn : What was the dance collective like in your time? How did it influence or enhance the dance culture in church? Sharmini : We made hip hop acceptable. (laugh) We did Joyful Joyful from Sister Act and people found the movements wholesome and enjoyable. I started experimenting with Asian culture and dance and I brought in the Malay, Chinese and Indian influence into our worship dance. We did our Singapore dance with umbrellas and fans at a UK dance conference inYork '94 and people were impressed. People were becoming more open to our asian culture. Dawn : Chan Mali Chan, issit? (laugh) Sharmini : Before that people were cautious of gestures like from that of Thai dancing. I did the lotus hand and some people thought it was a demonic gesture. To me it is a flower but if people want to worship it then it is their problem. So I can use it to mean something else. I came back to singapore in '96. I was experimenting with modern and jazz mix styles. I am still in the eclectic vein where I feel that my dance is not only for the church. When I went to Melbourne for year, I got to fellowship with other people outside the church. For a long time I was only surrounded by Christians and you can become very insular. I was taking dance classes and since I was a guest artist at the Victoria College of the arts, I was able to practice anytime. Do you still keep in touch with dancers/dance in the church? Sharmini : I do help the CDFS when they need it but I am doing things in a different way. We do a Dance in the Spirit Course, where we expose them to different styles of dance and give a movement education. We had a nice mix of christians from different backgrounds. I want the church out of that mentality where mediocrity is okay. Dawn : That is something I hear from everyone. Sharmini : If you want to dance, learn to dance properly. You want to reach out to the world, you need the standards to communicate with them. Dawn : How have you seen your ministry change? Now it is more discreet. Do people still say they want to go to church with you? Sharmini : We had discussions in our dance class. We talked about the things in the world and how terrible it is. I try to inject God in our conversations whenever I can. I would like to see more power in the studio. I feel that through relationships, that's how things change. For myself, I am there for my clients when they need someone. Dawn : What was the challenge then as a dancer in the church? Sharmini : I used to have a dance group in church. However, the conservatives in church were so opposed to us that there was a division in church. The group, including the pastor, was persecuted. Eventually the pastor left. For costumes, we covered ourselves completely and that was a terrible phase in singapore. Those white dresses were terrible.. and we had to wear a petty coat underneath and then tights and ballet shoes. I did not see the sense of it. Dawn : Someone described that 80s legalism. Sharmini : Singapore sort of imported the culture that covered every part of the anatomy. I think for a while ballet was not accepted as well. (laugh) One time they thought dance training was also bad because that was not dancing in the spirit. Thank God that changed. Dawn : How did you guys overcome that? Sharmini : One year I was asked to choreograph for the Festival of Praise. We ran classes for people for different styles of dances and choreography. That gave us the impetus to encourage people to go back to church and try new styles out. We ran workshops for them. We did a lot of pioneer work in the late 80s and 90s. It helps to have Daniel Tong on my side because he was studying to be a reverend at Trinity Theological College. So he got lobang inside. And I got to speak about dance. My audience was future pastors. I got to speak to them about worship. I took them through a simple movement piece and that opened doors, especially when you know that most of them are pastors of this generation now. Dawn : My pastor spoke about pioneers and settlers. You're a pioneer and that means doing things that no one has seen before or attempted. Sharmini : I have been feeling a little bit on my own. As a Christian, I was zealous when I first converted. I would take my navigator and I would memorise scriptures. I was ostracised by my classmates cos I was Chistian. But the lure of the performing arts pulled me away from God...guess I was not strong enough. The guys in the christian fellowship group looks so boring ah... I found those non-christian men so much fun to be with and more open minded. In dance you meet a lot of gay men and there was a lead guy in the Prodigal Son who was gay. The whole time he was involved in the dance performance, he was condemned by the group of christians who often came up to him and berated him. So it was a phase of legalism. I found myself siding more and more with people not in church. I would go to church but I found little interest. I think God was always with me when I did my mad things. I could have been arrested so many things, among other things but nothing happened to me. (Laugh) God had his mark on me. I was actually into drugs and heavily in coke and marijuana. I would do my drugs and sneak into church on sundays out of guilt. Pink hair, 80s flash dance fashion and at the back pew... I would cry and continue my old ways during the week. I remember going to Vineyard and leaving in the midst of a sermon. I heard John Wimber preach and halfway through the sermon I was so angry. The Holy Spirit was fighting with the other spirit within me. Yeah...I was making these attempts to come back to God. My parents separated but they found Jesus and God brought them back together.They would send me copies of Daily Bread and christian music. Then, I would be vacuuming the house and cry listening to the songs. One day we were doing coke and our hearts were palpitating. It was sheer panic. We thought, 'we were going to die so we better read the bible. What shall we read?' In the Daily Bread, the verse of the day was Rev 3:15. It was like Boom. God spoke. We took the drugs and flushed it down the toilet. I took the first flight and came back home. I came on the 14th feb and on the 19th I was baptised in the Holy Spirit. My mother took me to every church meeting I could go to. Dawn : You never had to go back to drugs again? Sharmini : No. I did not have the withdrawal symptoms. I did carrying on smoking but the funny thing I would lose my voice whenever I did. Even my non-chrisitan friends noticed and told me to stop smoking. Dawn : How do you feel about doing the gospel today? Sharmini : We (me and my husband) feel that if you want to preach the gospel, do it with your actions and not only with words. At least show what you mean. Don't sit in your church and talk about it. Actually some of the teachers in my Pilates classes are christians. Dawn : Advice for christian artists? Sharmini : I think go for God. People think too much, they worry so much and are too afraid of the devil. He that is in you is greater than he that is in the world. Dancers need to get proper training. Dawn : I see you guys as mentor figures. I wanted to ask you, if all the mentor figures in christian artists community get together, what would you like to share? I would like to choreograph a bunch of dancers. I feel that everything is sort of linear, the arms are always miming and I feel that you can interpret songs in such a myriad of ways. The Holy Spirit is so creative...I want to create images in my dance. Like a leaf in the wind. Yeah...I want to get a bunch of ragtag dancers and experiment outside of church restrictions... maybe explore icons and express their stories. Sharmini is energetic by persona. A bundle of creativity characterised by her frankness, I find myself enjoying very much, this prodigal daughter's journey.
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