Dance team Anubhav of Northwestern University’s won championship title at the Legends Bollywood Dance Championship 2017 held in Los Angeles, California, on April 15, making it the group’s third win in a national championship in the last four years.
Anubhav was recognized for best choreography, best costumes and best male lead. Ushasi Naha, team captain of Anubhav, said that she is excited to see the group’s hard work paying off.
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“We have had a pretty successful season, so we’re really happy about that, but Nationals is always a whole new ballgame,” the Weinberg senior said. “We really didn’t have any kind of expectations, so winning was truly a dream.”
To reach the championship, teams have to compete at various regional competitions which has applicants from hundreds of teams across the country. The top 10 teams will then advance to the final championship, said graduate student Hetal Patel, creative director and founding member of Anubhav.
Anubhav previously has won a different national championship, Bollywood America, last year and in 2014.
The team of about 25 dancers practices four times per week for two hours. In the winter the group dedicates six days a week to practice, Naha said.
“The weeks leading up to a competition we expect a lot from the team,” she said. “We put in everything we’ve got to get the show as well as it (can) be.”
Every year, Anubhav creates seven to eight minute story that encompasses a variety of dances and songs, Naha said. This performance is then repeated at various regional competitions and national championship, she said.
Patel said that though many other teams have embraced hip-hop and pop culture in their routines, Anubhav still deliberately works toward maintaining a “South Asian aesthetic.” Choreography, visuals, music and costuming is all influenced by the South Asian culture, she said.
This year, Anubhav chose to do an adaptation of “Life of Pi” to present a narrative of the struggles and perseverance of immigrants in the light of the “anti-immigrant rhetoric” of the presidential campaign, she said.
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“We all sort of felt a sense of purpose and responsibility as Asian Americans and as second-generation immigrants,” Patel said. “We were sort of hoping to take ‘Life of Pi’ as an abstract and symbolic way to reclaim and tell this narrative about immigrants that’s been sort of taken away from us recently.”
“Making (the theme) personal makes the entire experience so much more rewarding because in the end you know that you’re doing something you love but also speaking about something that affects you so much,” Sandepudi said.
By Premji
