UC Davis third-year biochemistry and molecular biology major Vyoma Bhanap wants to change the world through dance. In April, the Donald A. Strauss Scholarship Foundation Committee awarded Bhanap $15,000 to implement her proposal, Dance Bhoomi. This project uses the power of dance — specifically, dance therapy — to safely bridge the mind-body disconnect that often occurs in children who experience constant trauma.

Her Strauss year, as it is affectionally known in the scholarship community, kicks off at Snehalaya, a non-governmental organization for women empowerment in Ahmednagar, India. She debuts her pilot dance therapy curriculum for children affected by the sex-trafficking industry on their main rehabilitation campus this August.

All about dance

At UC Davis, Bhanap follows a pre-health track and mainly takes STEM classes. However, in the rest of her life she immerses herself in dance and the arts.

“Outside of school, I am really passionate about the arts. I was a theatre kid, a thespian in high school and one of my biggest artistic pursuits is dance,” Bhanap said. “I like to say I danced the second I was born.”

She discovered the dance form, Kathak, when she was 8. Kathak is a classical Indian form that originated in 400 B.C. and adapted through Indian periods of colonization and cultural mixing. It incorporates both Hindu and Muslim influences. Today, this dance style continues to evolve and even integrates aspects of the Indian American experience. She said Kathak helped her process growing up in Milpitas, California.

“Growing up is hard for everyone, it is painful and never linear. This anchor of dance was incredibly powerful for me as a second-generation immigrant trying to bridge my Indian heritage with my American surroundings,” Bhanap said. “Kathak was so affirming for me and gave me the tools to communicate freely, connect with my emotions and navigate the world in a more seamless manner. I saw and felt dance’s transformative power.”

She witnessed this power in action on her last visit to Snehalaya.

Snehalaya

Bhanap first learned of Snehalaya six years ago from her dad. He visited the organization on a visit to his home state of Maharashtra. When he returned to the U.S., he gifted her Snehalya’s Paris Sparsh, a book of short stories from children and women trapped in vicious cycles of human trafficking and poverty. There was only one problem: the book was written in Marathi, which Bhanap speaks but cannot read.

Bhanap and her family collaborated with fellow Marathi speakers in their community to translate the collection over the next year and a half.

“I was the manager because I could not help with the translating process. For hours, I read their stories and learned about their lives,” Bhanap said. “Organically, their words grew inside of me and became a significant part of my life. Then the pandemic hit and I decided to get involved and teach English classes over Zoom. This, of course, snowballed to me getting even more involved with Dance Bhoomi.”

Finally, Bhanap got her chance to visit all the people she learned about in the summer of 2021. In her scholarship application essay, she recalls how the children’s faces lit up when they heard she danced.

“It was an incredibly gratifying experience. I looked at my own experiences to see what I could offer and realized that dance was it,” Bhanap said. “It gave me so much power when I was younger. I wanted to help them reconnect with that childhood joy they lost in the process of growing up too fast. Once I saw the Donald A. Strauss scholarship pop up in my inbox, I knew this was the perfect opportunity.”

A scholarship and a dream

Bhanap met with Scott Palmer, prestigious scholarship advisor for UC Davis Financial Aid and Scholarships, last year to see if her idea was viable for the Donald A. Strauss Scholarship.

“When I found the scholarship, I was interested because it is public-service oriented and not STEM, which you do not see often,” Bhanap said. “I was really excited that this could push me to renew all my previous efforts with Snehalaya. Scott gave me space to think and provided the framework to help move things along.”

The Donald A. Strauss Scholarship Foundation awards 10 to 15 California college sophomores and juniors each year from 23 preselected universities. Students submit high-impact public service or social change proposals to carry out over the course of a year. Bhanap was selected as one of three UC Davis Strauss representatives.

“I waited for two months and did not think I was going to get it. My project is so nonconventional,” Bhanap said. “It turns out I just missed the call.”

Bhanap heads to Snehalaya in just a few days to roll out the program. She plans to use her award money to fund mental health counselor stipends and build a proper dance center while in India. She will continue to monitor the curriculum’s success virtually after she returns to UC Davis.

“My goal is for the children to gain new communication strategies, to understand their emotions on a deeper level and indirectly approach some of their trauma,” Bhanap said. “However, if at the end they just enjoy dancing that is enough for me.”