Tara is a jewel to me.

She is a shining star.

Tara is precious to me.

Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky.

[Foreign language] Tara is short.

Pretty short.

Yeah.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait... Tara's pretty goofy.

I'd say.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She's dreamy... Feel like we also pick on her a lot.

Makes her have thicker skin.

But practical.

Great team player.

Talented.

Tara is very fashionable.

She makes our styles much better.

Genuine, kind.

She is loving.

The kids always put on the united front.

Yes, exactly.

- Always.

Regardless of- As long as we agree, everybody agrees.

Everybody agrees, yeah.

I think our parents don't like the fact that we have somewhat unionized.

I feel like Tara is also very resilient, very strong for sure.

Dance defines Tara.

Tara to me is someone who's always ready to conquer the stage.

[foreign language] [foreign language] [foreign language] [foreign language] I have so many happy places.

I think so many things bring me joy in the world.

My biggest one is dance, obviously, because it's so prominent in my life.

I do it all day, every day and it just makes me happy.

It's an escape to the world.

[foreign language] When I dance, I feel like there's nothing around me.

I feel like it's just me and it's my main character moment.

It's me expressing myself and doing what I love.

My name is Tara.

I was born in Austin, Texas and I have two older brothers.

My parents came from India.

My earliest memory is having dance competitions with my brothers, with the coffee table as our stage.

My parents were the judges and I was always the winner.

When I was four, I started Indian dance classes.

At the same time, my friends in school started taking ballet lessons, so I made my mom sign me up for the same classes.

Soon I was taking the lessons in ballet, contemporary, hip hop, and jazz.

The rigor is the same, I think, for Western dance I was doing 20-something hours a week.

I still did a lot and same with Bharatanatyam.

I was doing multiple hours a week and just the little differences between the people in the class, the music and what I wore, just little things like that made a big difference to me.

[foreign language] In Bharatanatyam, once you learn a piece, you don't stop doing it.

Like the pushpanjali I did for my arangetram, I learned it when I was young.

I learned when I was, I think, six or seven maybe.

[foreign language] Initially I didn't like the music and it was in different languages.

It was hard to understand, hard to really relate to it, because I didn't really know many of the stories of Hindu gods.

And the clothes I was like, I'm wearing a kurta, I'm wearing long sleeves, and it's 90 degrees outside.

I don't want to be doing this.

I'm sweating so much.

There's no point.

And then the jewelry, when I got ready for performances, I'd be like, why does this costume have so many pieces?

Why is this jewelry so heavy?

The fake hair, I absolutely disliked the fake hair so much because your head would have to lay back.

It's just so heavy and all this jewelry, there's so much of it.

I didn't know how to put it on.

My mom didn't know how to put it on.

So, it's like a whole process.

It just takes so much time.

It takes two hours to get ready for a 10-minute dance.

We tried to bribe her.

There was an imaginary fairy who would come and drop things in the house in different places, but she caught on.

Then she would say, can the fairy bring this next time?

Because it was...

I remember before my arangetram, they got me Taylor Swift tickets.

Me and my mom went to go see Taylor Swift.

So that was one of the big ones, but I think now I don't need to be bribed anymore, so it's all good.

Thattai or chips, Tara?

Both.

Okay.

Done.

Bharatanatyam is one of India's most oldest dance form, it's definitely an amazing linkage into Indian culture, Hindu heritage.

It's a natural way to connect with Hindu mythology, clothing and so on and so on.

And today, of course, temples and all of that stuff.

Mm-hmm.

Mm, delicious.

And Raka did a great job of simplifying these festivals and removing level of orthodoxy and making it to be fun when you celebrate an Indian festival.

But we didn't compromise on the American festivals either.

It's about being both Indian and American.

So Thanksgiving was big, Christmas, and so was St. Pat's Day.

So kids learn to appreciate and live in this duality of you're both Indian and American.

So I started off with a really big group of people, like five or six people, and most all of them quit.

A lot of them left to go do American styles.

It was just me and another girl.

So only two of us were left and I didn't like that.

I was like, I should just join the norm and just leave, but I didn't.

The way Tara operated is that her American dance was a different life and her Indian dance was a different.

She was living two different lives and they never collided, they never intersected.

And so at this Diwali party, she invited a few American friends.

We urged her to, we cajoled her to.

And then I asked her to perform and then at that moment, her worlds were colliding and that didn't sit well.

And not only did it not sit well with her, her friends didn't appreciate it at that particular time.

It was so bad because we put in that much effort and she said, I hate Diwali, which was heartbreaking.

We were pretty relentless.

We were drivers to make sure we're going to stick with this.

Sometime the fever will break.

Sometime she might get comfortable about this duality sometime.

dual identity sometime.

I was never a quitter.

I never wanted the name quitter next to my name.

Dance has this magical effect always on Tara, regardless of what dance form it is.

And truly for Bharatanatyam too.

She would go in cranky, come out a happy person.

Welcome to the momentous occasion that we've been waiting for, and Tara has worked hard for many, many years, Her Bharatanatyam Arangetram.

[foreign language] After 10 years of Bharatanatyam lessons, my teacher told me it was time for my milestone graduation event, my arangetram.

[foreign language] It was a three-hour solo dance show consisting of 11 pieces with a live orchestra and 350 people in the audience.

My longest piece ran 45 minutes.

[foreign language] [foreign language] After three long hours, I finally finished my very last piece and, even though I could barely stand, I was filled with immense joy when the audience stood up and cheered.

All the hours and weeks and years of work had finally paid off.

[foreign language] Honestly, I never wanted to do this.

I just always think that.

I just was always like, this is way too much work.

I don't think I'd ever be able to pull that off, but I'm just standing here and I just did that whole thing and it really reminds me that, if I put my mind to something, then I can do anything in the world.

Bharatanatyam has really come a long way for me because I started off being forced to do it and not liking it, and then I accepted it and just did it because I had to.

And now I'm really proud to do it and I really enjoy doing it.

I think I've learned a lot of life lessons.

So one of them being hard work and how I can really just be resilient through tough times and I've gotten more focused and just like a grinder, just putting my head down, getting stuff done.

But then I've also been able to enjoy life more.

You're dancing through life and that's what I do.

I dance through life.

[foreign language] At the end of a piece, I would do this pose or I would be the Andal pose and I would be actually holding a parrot.

So I had a clay parrot that I would hold and people in the audience would stand up and they would go like this to me.

And I think that really made me understand the significance of my dancing in those places and made me feel the aura of it and the real spirituality of the place.

[foreign language] [foreign language] I can pick up a five-minute dance in an hour or I can have a song and look up the meaning and through all that choreograph a dance for myself or choreograph a dance with somebody else, and I can do that with mixing styles, with Bharatanatyam and folk and Bollywood.

It takes a lot of skill to be able to do that.

[foreign language] I've really began to embrace and represent my two cultures: my Americanness and my Indianness, and how I can represent that in my everyday life and just be the best.

I would say I'm an Indian ballerina and an American Bharatanatyam dancer.

[foreign language] And then all these surrounding little, little deities, all around with the big central deity When I was younger, I think I did feel more like an alien just because I was from the U.S. and India's a very different vibe.

It's always noisy, like when you're driving there's always honking going on.

There's people blocking the street all over you.

It's more overwhelming here.

Gravy, mushroom Manchurian.

What if you're actually really hungry?

When I'm very hungry, I want something delicious, like I want some soul food right now.

You always look at us and are smiling.

I think she has a smile, during dancing, right?

No, no, no.

But when you're doing namastestu mahamayee, the Lakshmi thing, she always does that.

She looks at us and smiles.

Because that's my go-to step.

When in doubt, pray it out.

Really?

- Who made that?

Taru made that.

Really?

- Yeah.

A Taru-ism.

Or Tara-ism.

Now I don't feel like an alien at all.

I feel like this is my second home, like I live here.

I can walk across the street with cars going everywhere and I'd just be like, stop.

(singing) So many times I thought you'd leave me.

Broken inside I feel I've lost my sanity.

Bye, love you.

Have a good day.

Good luck.

- Thank you.

Thank you, bye.

And five, six, seven, eight.

Lift.

Up.

Good.

Go step and eight.

Chest, one, full.

Up.

Lift.

Big hit.

I love dynamic and sharp movements.

That's something about me.

I love feeling strong.

I know that's something that a lot of people can't connect to, but when you're playing hip-hop music, it always has the hard beats in the back.

And when you're able to hit all those beats, whether they're small beats or they're big beats, you feel strong on the inside and you feel like you have the strength to hit those beats.

(singing) You go away.

But then maybe there's days I really like jazz.

When you're doing jazz, a lot of time it's to music that's on the radio, like pop music, and you're able to connect to it more.

So if it's to a song that I really like, I'm going to have so much fun doing that piece.

And my facials are going to be through the roof.

You'll be able to see.

My smile will be to each corner of the room.

Can I just love you in my heart.

Love you in my mind.

Do I have to find the guts to say it to your eyes.

Can I just love you in my heart, love you in my mind.

'Cause that's where we as stars align.

Welcome to Jive to Thrive.

Today we're going to be jiving or, in other words, dancing and seeing how that can contribute to your thriving or your mental health and health and mind.

In middle school, girls are not the nicest to each other, and that was happening to me a lot.

But then I would go to dance after school and I could see how my mood changed and I got so much happier just by moving my body.

I really started to think about this.

I simplified it down to a mnemonic called PESoMIND.

It's P-E-S-O-M-I-N-D. PESoMIND is what you get from dance.

From dance, you get the physical activity, that endorphin release.

From dance, you get that emotional expression through the movement.

From dance, you get the social connection and the mutual support from everyone around you, from your teacher.

And then from dance, most importantly, you get mindfulness.

You get to be physically aware of what you're doing and what your body is doing.

In Western dance, for Hyline, we're like sisters.

I see them every day.

It's the people that you're going to know probably for the rest of your life just because you see each other at practice, you've seen them through your highs and your lows.

(singing) Okay, I'm bringing one sweet, one savory.

Four of the same.

Don't look at my cards.

Daddy's such a cheater.

- Nobody yet.

- Oh, my gosh.

It is manifesting.

Okay.

See, last time it was you and me, again with me.

What do you mean?

I won both time, last two times.

My life is really structured.

A typical day, if it's a school day, I wake up at 6:15.

I have dance practice at seven in the morning at school, so Mom or Dad has to drive me there and I have that until 9:00 to 9:30ish, it'll end.

After that, I get ready and then I have my first period, second, third, fourth, fifth is lunch, and then sixth, seventh, eighth period.

And then I'll come home, get a snack, and then that's when I start my homework basically.

And depending on that, I'll either be working somewhere between 11:00 to one, like 1:30 and then I'll go to bed and do that all again the next day.

I see in my daily life that being a nice person can just cause a butterfly effect and be a really positive source.

After I climbed Kilimanjaro, I started a non-profit called PeakPower to help and support the porters on the mountain.

[foreign language] [foreign language] [foreign language] [foreign language] [foreign language] [foreign language] [foreign language] [foreign language] You could call me an Indian ballerina or an American Bharatanatyam dancer and I can do anything for I am Tara and I am strong.

[foreign language] Thanks.

If I could change something about myself, I'd definitely want to be a little taller, honestly, because, you know, why not?

What would you change in the world if you had the power to do so?

I would start small.

I would start with school.

I would take away grades and tests.

We just don't need to give kids more stress than they already have.

I love dancing to Bollywood music I love dancing to Bollywood music and one of my favorites is Rocky Aur Rani.

I love the song What Jhumka.

And whenever we have Diwali parties or anything, I'd always take all the adults in a circle and I'd teach them the little dance that's in the actual movie.

And it's so fun and everyone loves it.

It's just the best experience.