From theatre to Chief of Staff | I Went to Arts School
Shirin Keshvani, a SOTA Theatre & Film graduate and now Chief of Staff at a sustainability company, found her way back to the arts through teaching improv. After years of letting her artistic passions take a back seat, she's rediscovering how an arts education can enrich her personal and professional growth.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I think the arts education kind of spoiled me
00:03or kind of influenced me to believe that
00:05you are supposed to live a life with passion,
00:07you're supposed to live a life with meaning.
00:08I feel like some people could look at that and think it's idealistic
00:11but I kind of like that that's how I think about life.
00:16Hi, my name is Shirin.
00:17I studied theatre and film in SOTA
00:20and now I'm a chief of staff at a sustainability company.
00:23Is that okay?
00:24Okay.
00:25As far as I can remember, I always wanted to be an actress when I was younger.
00:29Constantly, you know, wanting to be on stage,
00:31wanting attention, you know, a sense of curiosity.
00:36My parents tell me this story about how in kindergarten
00:38they were asking for an emcee for like some ceremony
00:41and I was the only one who raised up my hand.
00:43I just remember really enjoying putting myself in the shoes of a character
00:48that was very different from my everyday life.
00:50I think that was the first thing that kind of got me hooked.
00:52But as a kid in Singapore,
00:54you kind of know that it's not one of your typical jobs or like pathways, right?
00:58So I had that kind of practicality already instilled in me
01:01but whether it was, you know, being in drama club in school
01:04or entering SOTA, which is a school that's sort of dedicated to your craft
01:08and kind of building that alongside, you know, studying.
01:11At no point did that make me question the path that I was on.
01:15I still found myself very drawn to it.
01:17So studying theatre in SOTA was a very interesting eye-opening experience.
01:21There was definitely a desire to choose and to be free and experiment.
01:26Like I came from the type of place where I was the only theatre kid
01:29and it was easy for me to stand out.
01:30But being in SOTA, you're surrounded by like brilliant minds.
01:33How are you going to stand out?
01:35Like, you know, the first theatre script that I wrote and I put out there
01:39paled in comparison to my peers.
01:40While it was a little disheartening,
01:42I think it was a very positive experience.
01:44I think it gave me a better understanding that I'm more of a performer.
01:48I'm the type of person that will take the words that you write
01:50and try to make it come to life.
01:51It kind of guided me a bit more precisely
01:54in terms of my relationship with theatre, my relationship with the craft.
01:58I just want to connect with it.
01:59I want to cry, I want to laugh
02:01and I feel like maybe that's me as a person too.
02:04Yeah.
02:15Things like understanding someone else's perspective.
02:17I think as an actress and as a theatre maker,
02:20you have to understand, you know, you're not acting in silo.
02:23You know that you have an effect.
02:24There's a relationship there.
02:26You have to understand each other on an emotional level.
02:28You have to understand why the stories we write come from certain places
02:32and how we can bring that together, find common theme
02:34and how it could be used as a way to process something
02:37that, you know, happened in your real life
02:39that you didn't have an opportunity to process
02:41and with that comes empathy.
02:43Yeah, I find myself still using that perspective and that lens
02:46and I think that translates into, you know, how I approach life.
02:54When I graduated and I went into the working world,
02:56the artistic version of myself kind of had to take a backseat.
02:59I did HR for a bit and one part that I realised
03:01was that I really want to be speaking to people.
03:03So then I made the kind of extreme switch to sales
03:06and I kind of had a bit of a crisis, a bit of a confidence crisis
03:09because you're also pegged to like, you know, certain metrics
03:12and I didn't fare so well with that sort of system.
03:15I think there is a lot of vulnerability in admitting
03:18that you're not good at something.
03:20So then just recently, I switched into sustainability.
03:24I'm still curious about things that I have, you know,
03:26no business being curious about, like I have no background in
03:28and I'm still compelled to try new things,
03:30not really kind of locking myself into any particular industry.
03:34If I'm going to be living more authentically,
03:36I might as well try to find other ways to engage with the arts.
03:39So now I'm going to be teaching improv.
03:43The journey to fulfilment is a lot more like deliberate and intentional.
03:47I feel like I've been working to get it less from professional achievements,
03:52if that makes sense, and getting it from relationships,
03:54getting it from my hobbies.
03:56And that's kind of why I started improv.
03:59That was when I managed to take that artistic self,
04:02you know, back out of its box or whatever
04:05and I think that really helped me find a different way to define myself,
04:09breaking my identity up and not just like the Shireen that works,
04:12but also the Shireen that does improv,
04:14the Shireen that's a friend, the Shireen that's a daughter,
04:16the Shireen that's like a sister.
04:18I think that helps me disperse the idea of fulfilment
04:20and get it in like smaller doses rather than like one big thing.
04:25Even in SOTA, I felt like my sense of fulfilment
04:27didn't solely come from one place.
04:29It usually boils down to, am I being my authentic self here?
04:32Am I engaged meaningfully with what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis here?
04:36It's a type of way of living that I kind of developed
04:41through being in art school that I still carry with me
04:44and I don't think I'm myself unless I'm engaged with the arts,
04:47whether I'm watching it, appreciating it
04:49or, you know, full-fledged being part of a production
04:52and I feel like that's why I'm excited for this chapter of my life
04:55where I get to engage with the arts on a more regular basis
04:58through teaching it, sharing it and enriching other people's lives with it.