Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

For Michael Sal­ick­ram, dance has nev­er been sim­ply about move­ment.

It has been his lan­guage, his pas­sion and, per­haps most im­por­tant­ly, his way of ex­press­ing his love for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

For al­most four decades, Sal­ick­ram has used his tal­ent to tell the sto­ry of a na­tion shaped by dif­fer­ent peo­ples, cul­tures, re­li­gions and tra­di­tions. Through chore­og­ra­phy and per­for­mance, he has car­ried the colours, sounds and spir­it of Trinidad and To­ba­go to au­di­ences at home and across the world.

His jour­ney be­gan when he was just ten years old, when he dis­cov­ered a pas­sion for dance that would even­tu­al­ly be­come a life­long com­mit­ment.

By the ear­ly 1980s, Sal­ick­ram was al­ready mak­ing his mark. He lat­er teamed up with his cousin, San­dra Mathu­ra, and the two be­came a pop­u­lar danc­ing duo.

In 1987, he found­ed the Shiv Shak­ti Dance Com­pa­ny, which would grow in­to one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s lead­ing dance com­pa­nies.

Sal­ick­ram al­so broke new ground, be­com­ing the first male dancer to win the high­ly ac­claimed Mas­tana Ba­har and Scout­ing for Tal­ent com­pe­ti­tions. He went on to earn nu­mer­ous oth­er ac­co­lades, in­clud­ing recog­ni­tion through the Prime Min­is­ter’s Best Vil­lage Com­pe­ti­tion.

But while awards and in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion have marked his ca­reer, Sal­ick­ram be­lieves his most im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion has been us­ing cul­ture to bring peo­ple to­geth­er.

He recog­nised ear­ly that cul­ture could be a pow­er­ful force for uni­ty rather than di­vi­sion.

That be­lief led to a ground­break­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Shiv Shak­ti and the Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ers. To­geth­er, they pro­duced mem­o­rable “uni­ty” per­for­mances, in­clud­ing The Ganges and the Nile.

The pro­duc­tion brought two dis­tinct cul­tur­al tra­di­tions to­geth­er on one stage, il­lus­trat­ing how Trinidad and To­ba­go’s di­ver­si­ty could be­come a source of strength.

Through pro­duc­tions such as Ja­ha­ji Bhai and God Bless Our Na­tion, he and the Shiv Shak­ti Dance Com­pa­ny have re­peat­ed­ly placed pa­tri­o­tism and na­tion­al pride at the cen­tre of their per­for­mances.

Rather than sim­ply speak­ing about na­tion­al uni­ty, Sal­ick­ram has sought to make au­di­ences feel it.

His per­for­mances cel­e­brate the many cul­tur­al threads that have been wo­ven in­to the na­tion­al fab­ric while re­in­forc­ing a sim­ple mes­sage: de­spite dif­fer­ences in an­ces­try, re­li­gion or tra­di­tion, Trinidad and To­ba­go is home to all of us.

Sal­ick­ram’s pa­tri­o­tism has al­so trav­elled far be­yond the coun­try’s shores.

His tal­ent has tak­en him across Eu­rope, Asia, North and South Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, where he has used the uni­ver­sal lan­guage of dance to in­tro­duce in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Along the way, Shiv Shak­ti has per­formed for in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned fig­ures, in­clud­ing Nel­son Man­dela, Queen Eliz­a­beth II and Prince Charles (now King Charles III).

Sal­ick­ram al­so per­formed in the same con­cert as Bol­ly­wood su­per­star Shah Rukh Khan and served as an as­sis­tant chore­o­g­ra­ph­er on the Bol­ly­wood film Dul­ha Mil Gaya, which was part­ly filmed in Trinidad.

His con­tri­bu­tion to the coun­try’s cul­tur­al land­scape was fur­ther recog­nised with the award of the na­tion­al Cha­co­nia Medal.

Yet, de­spite the in­ter­na­tion­al stages and dis­tin­guished names as­so­ci­at­ed with his ca­reer, Sal­ick­ram’s artis­tic heart re­mains firm­ly root­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“I have al­ways loved Trinidad and To­ba­go, and I have al­ways be­lieved that our great­est strength is our di­ver­si­ty,” he said.

“We are a small coun­try, but we have such a rich mix­ture of cul­tures, tra­di­tions, re­li­gions and peo­ple. I want­ed to use the lan­guage I know best—dance—to cel­e­brate that.”

Sal­ick­ram’s artis­tic jour­ney takes on an even deep­er sig­nif­i­cance as Trinidad and To­ba­go marks 50 years as a Re­pub­lic,

His pa­tri­o­tism has nev­er been con­fined to words. It has been chore­o­graphed, per­formed and shared with au­di­ences around the world.

Every per­for­mance has pro­vid­ed an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate the coun­try he loves.

Every cul­tur­al col­lab­o­ra­tion has cre­at­ed an­oth­er bridge be­tween com­mu­ni­ties.

And every young dancer in­spired by his jour­ney rep­re­sents an­oth­er part of the lega­cy he leaves be­hind.