By Paul TakahashiThe Daily Northwestern
The Deeva Dance Troupe performed in their first spring showcase Saturday, attracting about 200 people to their show.
“We Be Burnin,'” the group’s first solo event, was held at Ryan Auditorium and brought in about $1,000 for the dance troupe.
“We’re putting on a performance of all the types of dances that we do,” said Archana Ram, the troupe’s leader. “What we do normally in the year is have a medley of styles fused together, but this show displays each style individually, so there’s more focus on each style.”
The 12-member, all-female dance group was formed in 2000 by Amy Shah, Weinberg ’04, and Roshni Parikh, SESP ’04, who were influenced by a similar dance team at New York University.
“Their first year, they didn’t do any competitions,” said SESP senior and group member Avni Patel. “They basically just did a dance at the South Asian Student Alliance show and since then, we’ve gone to over a dozen competitions (and) been a guest act at different types of shows in Chicago.”
Last year, the dance troupe was flown to Miami to dance at a wedding.
Some of the graduated members of Deeva Dance Troupe were at Saturday’s event too.
“The nice thing is that the support from the graduated class is so present, they were here tonight,” said Patel. “You can see how proud they are that it just started with an idea and just went from there.”
The Deevas performed a variety of dances this past weekend, ranging from classical Indian dance to hip hop.
“(The diversity of dance styles) reflects the fact that we’re all Indians but living in America,” said troupe member and Medill freshman Godhuli Chatterjee. “It’s also for the audience because the members are primarily South Asians who live in America. I feel like they’ll really enjoy this fusion between classical Indian dancing as well as Western styles.”
For example, one classical Indian dance called Bharatanatyam was performed to “Pachelbel’s Canon.”
“It’s a traditional Indian dance, but performed to one of the great pieces of classical music,” Patel said.
Dancing has special significance in the Indian culture, she said.
“There are a lot of festivals and religious holidays that incorporate the different types of dance,” Patel said. “So even though you’re not professionally trained in them, you experience and learn it because of participation in these different cultural and religious holidays.”
Many of the members have taken dance seriously, Patel said.
“A lot of the girls who start Indian dances start when they’re like five or seven,” Patel said. “In addition, a lot of the girls who do dances in hip hop and jazz started at an early age and just meandered into this kind of dance.”
Guest performers at “We Be Burnin'” included Deevo Dancers, the complementary male troupe, and four members from Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.
“We thought rather than having another Indian group as a guest performance, it’ll be cool to expose the new crowd to both our dance and expose the Indian crowd to (the dance style of) stepping,” said Ram, a Medill senior.
Medill senior Coley Harvey, the dance leader of Phi Beta Sigma, said being a guest performer at “We Be Burnin'” was a great opportunity for his group.
“It was awesome to learn the cultures and traditions that would otherwise not come together,” said Harvey, a former Daily staffer.
Abhi Bhandavi, a Weinberg senior who was at the event, said “it was really entertaining.”
“I’ve seen them before, but they’re good all the time,” he said.
Reach Paul Takahashi at [email protected].
