TODAY we introduce to you Maresha Arthur. She has been in the company for the past 8 years, and has danced at Carifesta in 2006 in Trinidad and in 2008 in Guyana. 

Just last year she performed for CARICOM’s 40th anniversary celebration in Trinidad.
Of course she dances in the many genres demanded of the company’s members, but for her, modern dance is the thing.
“It allows me to speak to my audience the best way I know how, and this makes me feel good inside,” she says.
For her, the company’s studio is a haven after a long and trying day.
Maresha, a mathematics teacher at St. Joseph’s High, explains that if her day is demanding and stressful, she would hurry home after work, have a quick bite and hurry to the studio for exercises or rehearsals if a show is coming up.
“This is a panacea for me. At the end of the evening my feet would be sore, but my heart would have been lifted.”
Like every good dancer, Maresha is familiar with the proverbial butterflies fluttering in her stomach before a performance.
“Particularly if the choreography has a tricky sequence, would wait backstage, costumed and fully made-up, working it over and over in my mind; and then when the curtain rises and I go on stage and it works out , I say a silent prayer and all is right with the world.”
She never misses her exercises, and these, she says, help to build stamina and technique.
And stamina is important, for sometimes a performance rums to 15 items, each of these with intricate choreography and individual sets of beats that have to be memorized by the performer. Just a single slip would ruin the dance and set ensemble work awry.
She is also particular about her diet, staying away from fatty foods and turning a blind eye to energy drinks.
Maresha is slim, with just the figure for ballet, and so she is the primary dancer to be put in classical ballet sequences.
It is likely that come July 5, onstage at the National Cultural Centre, we will see her in tutus and ballet shoes. (Raschid Osman)
Written By Rashid Osman