Raunak Offers Dance, Diversity

Just what does “Raunak” mean? To Harvard’s South Asian Dance Company (SADC), it means a venue where a fusion of dance groups from many east coast colleges come together to represent the complex South Asian community and support a spotlighted charity. The term literally means “fun and excitement,” which was just the vibe of the Raunak intercollegiate dance show, performed this past Friday and Saturday in Lowell Lecture Hall.

Technical difficulties delayed the show’s opening night, but no one seemed to mind, probably because the audience consisted mainly of friends of the far-flung performers. Students of Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, and a number of other colleges traveled for hours to perform in the show.

The informality of the audience did nothing to deter from the enjoyment of the montage of dance styles: tap, bharathanatyam, hip hop, bhangra, jazz, kathak, Bollywood and ballet, alone and in collaboration. Each group seemed to have its own enclave of particularly enthusiastic supporters in the audience, with UPenn’s PENNaach group greeted with the same warmth as Harvard’s Asian American Dance Troupe (AADT).

The opening number offered a straightforward contrast between East Asian and South Asian dance forms, with the SADC and AADT dancing side by side to the same music, each in their respective styles, but from there the expected “fusion” grew more and more complex.

Cornell’s troupe depicted the influence of the West on Eastern culture through a dance story about hunters stalking deer through the forest. The Cornell dancers donned berets and shifted their music from Indian song to the sounds of the Black Eyed Peas and Janet Jackson, integrating Western style with their traditional forms as the spirits of the story’s deer rose up with increased vitality after the hunters’ ravage.

The audience was surprised but impressed by the last act of the evening, a hip hop/Bhangra fusion by the Harvard Medical School and Bhangra groups, in what was arguably the edgiest performance of the night. The Harvard Bhangra dancers laudably held their own next to the aggressively provocative medical students.

Despite the light-hearted appeal of the show, its serious undertone periodically surfaced throughout the night. This year’s spotlighted charity, Nepal-based Educate the Children (ETC), was a particularly suitable choice for Raunak.

S. Monica Soni ’06, who codirected the show with Tilottama R. Sen ’07, says ETC was chosen “in hopes of raising awareness of the broad range of South Asian culture and people.”

Midway through the show, a visiting ETC representative gave a short presentation about ETC’s role in building schools and promoting women’s literacy in Nepal. According to Soni, Raunak’s two shows succeeded in raising more than $4,000 for ETC.

Because of the range of performances and number of acts, no one troupe could hold full responsibility for the night’s spectacular performance. But this year’s Raunak couldn’t have been such a success without Monica Soni, who not only took charge of organizing the show, but also choreographed and performed in her own number, a jazz-modern piece spotlighting the ballet techniques of Rebecca S. Miller ‘06.

According to Soni, whose dedication to Raunak is evinced by her performance in Saturday night’s show despite a foot injury the night before, “The audience both nights was very engaged and enthusiastic, and every performer told me they had a great time.”

For the participants last Friday, Raunak meant something else entirely: a fusion of ecstatic energy with profound cultural awareness.