Busy few weeks

Finally the dance season is here. Had a busy few weeks/weekends.

April 11 2009
We started off with our performance of the Jatiswaram and the Tillana in the Bengali New year festival in Zilker park in Austin
It was a horrible day . It had rained earlier and was drizzling the whole time. We started dancing, but we were all scared we were gonna fall down! Just when we thought we got our groove, the guys back stage stopped our song and somehow skipped a whole section. It took some time to figure out where we were and we finally caught up on it. The Jatiswaram was a big mess. Next was our tillana. By now, most of us were in full standing... we weren't in arai mandi. We were dancing standing up. Atleast, I was.. very pathetic performance by me.

Anyways, you can check us out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIXHoaCJRfw

I am the one in the left most corner of the stage - in orange and yellow salwar.

We were in the newspaper too! That was the highlight of this show.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/bengalis-celebrate-culture-coming-of-spring-1.1711460

in the first picture, i am turned away from the camera (orange dress) and in the 3rd picture.. i am wearing the black coat... trying to get a glimpse of the dancers.
i had no idea they were taking pictures for the newspaper.. else i would have posed properly!


April 19 2009
The one we did in zilker was more of a practice to the one we performed in Temple TX. We were supposed to go on at 2.00 PM, but due to the homams, we started pretty late - around 3.30.

We did all the 4 dances we have learnt so far - Shlokam, Alaripu, Jatiswaram and Tillana.
Check us out here:
Tillana:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpYXw20AT54

Jatiswaram:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq6viOhFToE

Alaripu:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVEiKg8kq6E

Shlokam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sTw11cQ8Cs


May 9 2009:
This was the big show. This time our annual recital Natya Mela was in Lanier High school theater.
I could not beleive how long we took to dress up. It was fun though!
The adults group performed the tillana. The theme was a mela as the name suggests and the finale was a procession.
I thought we did ok. But again, got to improve sooo much.

Check us out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7kY-h2WGew

May 23 2009:
Our next performance for this season will be in the Mexican American Cultural Center. These guys usually host a show to showcase many countries' dances. It will be fun to see the chninese, japanese, africans, indians all performing under one stage!