National championships are hard to come by, but the Boston University Garba/Raas dance team managed to secure the top spot for the second year in a row April 11.
As the victorious Indian cultural dance team wraps up yet another semester of hard work, members said they plan on carrying the team’s energy and success into next year. Team captain Meera Brahmbhatt said the group expects more than the usual 40 or so students to try out next semester because of this year’s competitive success.
College of Arts and Sciences junior Didi Pathak said she plans on continuing the team’s legacy as next year’s co-captain.
‘I think we have what it takes to stay competitive,’ Pathak said.
Brahmbhatt said the tryouts, which take place in September, are not usually very competitive but the slots are limited. She said many who do not make the team still practice with them.
‘The most difficult aspect of coaching the team is replacing everyone that graduates and trying to teach new people the dance,’ Brahmbhatt said. ‘Last year, we had to replace more than half the team.’
BU Garba/Raas members said they enjoy participating on the dance team because it connects them with their Indian heritage, and many of their friends also dance on the team.
‘I feel that it is important to embrace the Indian culture, which is so beautiful and passionate,’ Ujas Parikh, a CAS freshman, said
Garba and Raas are two traditional dance forms from classical India, Brahmbhatt, a Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences senior, said.
Garba, from the Gujarat region, is the slower and more graceful of the two dance forms, and is performed in a circle with swaying feet, Brahmbhatt said. Raas is the more energetic form, performed in two horizontal lines with sticks called dandiya.
Brahmbhatt said American collegiate teams have combined the two forms into a fast-paced energetic dance with matching costumes and a mixture of steps from other dance forms.They compete in Raas Nationals, hosted by the Blueflame Productions with the support of DesiDanceTeams.com and Gujarati Samaj of Dallas and Fort Worth.
‘We typically dance at a tempo three times faster than what is traditional, and the judges seem to like our speed and modernization of the dance form,’ Brahmbhatt said.
In order to reach that speed, the team practiced four to five times a week during the spring semester, with practices lasting at least three hours in order to prepare for the competition, Brahmbhatt said.
The team received a $1,750 prize for winning the championship, which was held in Dallas.
Brahmbhatt said despite all the dance team’s hard work, she still expected the men’s hockey team to receive much more attention for its national championship, which it snared the same night as the dance competition because the BU Garba/Raas team is only well known in BU’s Indian community.
‘When we found out the hockey team had just won, we were already excited,’ Brahmbhatt said. ‘After we found we had won, we were in jubilation.
‘It feels great after putting all those hours into it day after day.’
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