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February 6, 2006 Vol. 77,
no. 4S
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| READY
TO COMPETE:
Engineers on the Berkeley Competitive Raas Team are, from left, Kevan
Shah (BioE senior), Krishna Shah (IEOR junior), Heena Patel
(CEE senior), Sumeet Patel (IEOR junior), and Suneet Shah (EECS
junior). They are unrelated. (Photo provided by Heena Patel)
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“It’s
such a rush”
Engineers find creative and competitive joy in Raas dancing
CEE senior Heena Patel, IEOR junior Sumeet Patel, and BioE senior
Kevan Shah have been dancing Raas for years. They danced it regularly
with their families at local garbas, community dances that celebrate
the Gujarati culture, a state in western India. At these gatherings,
300 to 400 people of all ages danced Raas. That was just for fun, the
three say, but performing it onstage was another thing.
“I started performing when I came to Cal,” Sumeet Patel
recalls. “That
first time, all my saliva disappeared, and it was so dark, all I could
see were shapes of heads in the audience.” He quickly overcame
his stage fright to become a co-captain of the Berkeley Competitive
Raas Team with Heena.
Raas is distinct among South Asian Indian dances for its dandias,
or sticks, which the dancers hold and incorporate into their movements.
Men and women in colorful costumes step and whirl to the music, forming
and re-forming patterns as they hit their sticks together and twirl
them above their heads. Cal’s Raas team got its start four years ago when a new collegiate-level
competition was introduced at UC Irvine. The team enters one to three
competitions each winter. The 16 members (five of whom are engineers)
sometimes stay up all night to hone their seven-minute routine. During
a typical practice, they stretch and warm up, practice footwork, and
run through the routine again and again, because it’s critical
that members dance in sync. “One of the keys to winning, for
example, is to have all the hands at the same height,” explains
Sumeet.
Each year, their dance is different. In the fall, Heena and Sumeet
collaborate with Kevan Shah to create a new dance. They choose a few
songs they like and meld them into a single track. Then begins the
creative process of picking a theme (this year, it’s a love story
in the jungle), steps and patterns. “We like being traditional
and, at the same time, being creative,” says Shah.
“Sometimes
we incorporate American hip hop movements.” They also use their
engineering skills to make elaborate props, which have included a Ferris
wheel that rotates and an elephant that blows confetti from its trunk.
It all takes time, and the engineers say they must be efficient
with their schedules in order to keep up with school. “I know if I
have an hour to do my homework, I have to be productive and get it
done,” says Sumeet Patel. “You just learn to manage your
time.”
“It’s such a rush and a blast,” says Heena about performing
with the team. “And the competitions are the coolest because we meet people
from other schools, and everyone has a good time.”
Watch the team perform this Saturday, February 4, in San Francisco. For more
information, go to www.bollywoodberkeley.com/.
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