By Akhila Kolisetty Contributing Writer
Multicolored embroidered skirts twirl around the room, and golden jewelry sparkles beneath the light. The dancers move vigorously in a circular pattern wielding brightly decorated sticks called "dandiyas."
These dancers are part of Northwestern's Garba/Raas team. The team enters dance competitions throughout the country and has achieved a great deal of success in just four years.
"Raas is a very high energy dance," McCormick sophomore Vishal Parikh said. "I would almost compare it to running a marathon because you get extremely tired after only three minutes of dancing."
Garba and Raas originate in the western Indian state of Gujarat. Weinberg sophomore Hetal Patel said the dances have their roots in Hinduism.
Garba is all female, and the women dance and clap rhythmically in a single circle. The men join in for Raas, forming two concentric circles moving in opposite directions. The dancers whirl around in a series of steps while waving their dandiyas.
Passed down through the centuries, the Garba and Raas styles have changed over time as younger performers add modern influences and variations to the steps.
Patel said that although the team's dances are quite traditional, the group members try to add steps from current films to their dances.
"We do a lot of stunts, like in cheerleading, where the guys will twirl or flip the girls," she said.
Parikh has been dancing since he was a child but said there are people of many different skill levels on the team.
Though she had previous experience with the Indian classical dance of bharatnatyam, Patel said that she had never done Raas before joining the team.
"At tryouts, they basically taught us the steps, and I just picked it up there," Patel said.
The Raas team participates in a large variety of shows and events at NU, including Preview NU and shows for the South Asian Student Alliance.
The eight male and eight female members of the team practice four times a week for about two hours each session. As co-choreographer for the team, Patel also attends several extra weekly meetings for choreography.
Despite the effort it takes, Patel said she truly enjoys the dancing.
"I love it. It's my biggest extracurricular activity here," she said.
Weinberg junior Amar Vira, the team's president, agreed that the members have to work very hard.
"We find that the team is on a time crunch because of the quarter system," Vira said. "After New Student Week, we had only one and a half weeks to practice for our first competition. We only have a short time to create routines and put together the entire team while other schools get a month headstart."
Last year, the team attended two major competitions. The team placed fourth in Dandiya Dhamaka at the University of Michigan. It also placed second in Raas Chaos, an intercollegiate competition sponsored by George Washington University. The team hopes to win this year's competition on Nov. 18.
"It's our goal to go to the competition this year and be the best of the best," Parikh said.
Reach Akhila Kolisetty at a-kolisetty@northwestern.edu.
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