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If you think life’s tough, imagine how much tougher it would have been if you were born with wheels under your feet. Standing still would’ve been a slippery affair, a leisurely walk a distant dream and dancing, a living nightmare.

But then, thrill seekers all over the world, not content with life’s natural trials and tribulations, have been devising ways since time immemorial to make life’s arduous journey more difficult by introducing all sorts of self-imposed adversities. Calling it adventure, they’ve been scaling heights, diving deep and, last but not the least, strapping wheels to their feet and performing all sorts of feats.

Yes, while roller skating has given thrill-seekers a take on what it’s like to walk on wheels, artistic skating is all about dancing on wheels. And now it’s on offer in Calcutta.

“Artistic skating is a cross between roller skating (which is gliding on the ground with roller skates) and figure skating (which is performing dance movements on ice using ice blades),” explains Madhuchhanda Mookerjee of Zenith Roller Skating Academy, a Calcutta-based artistic skating training institute.

Usually artistic skating combines the gliding effect of roller skating with figure skating movements such as jumps, spins or twirls, inspired by dance forms like ballet. But, points out Mookerjee, “In India, a unique form of artistic skating has evolved because we have been experimenting with eastern classical dance forms like Bharatnatyam and Odissi.”

At Zenith’s Rash Behari Avenue training centre, for instance, eight-year-old Rupkatha Ganguly, who has been learning Odyssey since the age of four, has also been practising the same movements on roller skates. “It’s fun,” says the student of well known Odissi dancer, Sutapa Talukdar, who claims that she wants to be a dancer when she grows up. But then she quickly adds, “Not just a dancer, but a roller skating dancer,” before performing a five-minute solo on skates at the centre of the spacious practice yard.

In fact, if you drop in at Zenith’s Rash Behari Avenue centre between 5 and 6.30 in the evening on specific week days, you will find many other children — from the age of three to 20 — practising different dance forms on roller skates. “While dance forms like Kathak are extremely difficult to perform wearing roller skates because of the extensive foot movement involved, our aim is to try and introduce roller skating in as many dance movements as possible.”

And that includes not just western dance forms ranging from the twist to the tango, but also what Mookerjee calls “Hindi film dancing”. As a matter of fact, she points out, you can perform almost every dance form under the sun — and a few over the moon — on roller skates. Not to mention some which do not qualify as proper dance movements like the hula hoop hop, which 10-year-old Ridhi Virmani willingly demonstrates. “It’s not easy because not only are you balancing the hula hoop on your hips but you are also balancing yourself on wheels strapped to your feet, which are moving,” she says. “But I’ve been practising for over a year and now I can do it quite well,” she says, gliding to the centre of the cemented yard, twirling her plastic hula hoop around her hips.

According to Mookerjee, what makes artistic skating exceptionally challenging is that it “combines the speed and balance of a sport like roller skating with the grace and control of dance”.

And like dance, music too plays a key role in artistic skating. Zenith, which has members participating in contests, exhibitions and shows held in different venues around the city at least twice a year, for instance, trains students to perform particular dance forms to appropriate music. This ranges from western or Hindustani classical to hip hop, pop, rap, reggae rock or jazz.

Says Mookerjee, who choreographs these shows — which includes choosing the music and designing costumes according to the form of the artistic skating programme, “The sport is really catching on in the city as far as its popularity is concerned”.

In the six years since the government-registered Zenith started in 2000, the student strength has apparently gone up from five to 125 and by popular demand two other centres — one in Alipore (National Library Avenue) and another in Salt Lake (Sports Authority of India complex) have opened up. And the school’s greatest achievement to date has been the performance of two of its students at a national championship, where they have won the gold and bronze medals for the state in the dance-skating category. So what are you waiting for? Go get a rocking life — start rolling.