This past Saturday, USC’s Indian Cultural Exchange (ICE) hosted the ninth annual Aag Ki Raat, a fusion dance competition in which collegiate dance teams from schools around the country competed for a $1,000 prize.
The competition took place at the Koger Center, and portions of the proceeds were donated to Ekal Vidyalaya and GlobeMed at USC, two organizations that work to improve the lives of impoverished people in rural parts of India.
The innovative choreography combined with the sheer skill of the dancers made for a stunning and entertaining show. Rather than just moving to music, each team’s dance also followed a narrative. Context for each story was given by a short video that would play while the dancers entered the stage.
Stories ranged from a comedy about an Indian father taking his American children back in time to the 1970s, to a Bollywood-esque romance between two students. Perhaps the most creative dance was the Sherlock Holmes-themed piece from Nashaa at Ohio State University.
“We were just brainstorming stuff over summer,” said Akshay Krishnamani, captain of Nashaa. “And we kind of wanted to go with a mystery theme, so we played around with a few ideas, and we thought we could have the most fun with that [Sherlock Holmes] idea.”
Teams from University of North Carolina, George Mason University, North Carolina State University, Rutgers University, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia and a team made up of dancers from both Georgia Tech and Emory University also competed. USC’s teams, Moksha and Gamecock Bhangra, performed but did not compete.
“In my case, because we’re just an exhibition act, it’s just a whole bunch of fun,” said Janki Dalal, Vice President of Moksha. “The two USC teams … are just exhibition acts because it’s home turf, and we don’t want to [compete] on home turf.”
The combination of traditional Indian dance styles, like Bharata Natyam and Bhangra, and Western styles, like hip-hop and contemporary, made the performances even more fresh and interesting. But ability to fuse styles was just one piece of what the judges were looking for.
“For me, musicality and creativity are big,” said Pavan Gedala, one of the judges. “I do some DJ services for some teams as well, and I think it’s really easy to just get caught up in the simple bass, but if you can really harness the complexity of some of the songs, it can really sell it to the audience.”
All of the judges are dancers themselves and have witnessed a trend in recent years: dance performances becoming more Westernized.
“In general, across the years, teams used to be a lot more traditional,” said Srihari Sritharan, another one of the judges, “and since people have been remixing songs a lot more often, and also just as the generation shifts toward a more modern, integrated society, things are becoming more contemporary. Not as in the dance style, but just a lot more American. But in the end, the point is that you’re performing for your audience.”
First place was awarded to North Carolina State’s Nazaare, whose performance centered around a true story of a student’s experience with cancer. However, all of the teams, including USC’s noncompeting ones, should be proud of the work that went into their performances.