Dance is life! I love dancing! The following are the dances I've been in so far. I hope I find someway of continuing now that I have graduated.

Kathak, Fall 2008: First perfomance of the year was at the Durga Temple in Burke, VA for Holi (the Festival of Lights). It was a great turnout and everyone loved our dance. The dance was to Mere Dhona, from the movie Bhool Bhulaiyan. It was a shortened version of our dance, as we were not fully prepared.

The second performance was a the Cherry Blossom Festival. This time we danced to the full version of the first dance. It went great, the day was nice and there was a nice crowd as well.

From the sucess of our Cherry Blossom Festival, the parents of other groups asked if we could dance to Mere Dhona again at the India Day Festival in celebration of India's Indepenece. Satrudhan Sinha was at that festival as well, speaking as the Health Minister of India.

The last performance for the year was at Wolf Trap, this dance was a Tandav dance which was done by Lord Shiva. Actually, our group opened for Nitriki Dance Group with Mere Dholna and closed for the group with the Tandav from the movie Waqt.

Kathak, Fall 2007: I have started learning Kathak, a classical Indian Dance. My teacher is Shweta Misra and she is great. I started in November of 2006. My first performance was in Reston for a multicultural festival. It was with one other girl. We danced to Dheem, from the movie Thakshak. It was okay but I was nervous, as it was my first performance after 3 years. My second performance was at Wolf Trap, this dance was just showing the basics of Kathak with little kids. We weren't ready to perform the dance I was actually learning at the time. The third show was at a Diwali Mela in Arlington, VA. This dance was the same as the one at Reston, Dheem. There were two other girls with me this time, and I was center stage! =) I was much more prepared for this one. I hope to be preforming more later one. For now, I will continue to learn all there is to know about Kathak.

Chinese Cultural Show, Spring 2004: The last dance at Virginia Tech wasn’t Indian! It was Chinese….choreographed by my friend Shuo, so I had to be in it. The dance was a traditional long sleeve dance. It was actually quite difficult at first because I was used to fast pace, not flowy moves from bhangra. And Shuo being a ballet dancer had so many slow, graceful moves and jumps…it definitely took me a while. Even my sister said that the dance didn’t suit me! Haha. The girls in this dance were: Katie, Mary-Etna, Liz, Melody, Teresa, me, and two others. (I wish were had know everyone better)…. Anyway, the pictures didn’t turn out too well but there are some, along with a couple of shots from Shuo’s other dance.

Dance of Nations & AASU Show, Fall 2003: The following semester, I performed for Dance of Nations and AASU (Asian American Students Union). This was another bhangra dance. This time SIA decided to mix the two genders to get a team of: Taruna, Simi, Meenu, Ragyi, Vickram, Sunny, Anmol, Aman, Sajeel, Dhaval, and me. The two shows were back to back, one on Friday night and the other on Saturday, so it was a fun weekend! =) We decided to add to the dancing with some stunts! And another thing that was awesome about this dance was that Ragyi and I were on stage for the first time together!

SIA Cultural Show, Spring 2003: My next show was spring semester of sophomore year. This was an all girl bhangra dance. Yup, modern to bhangra. Oh, but its sooooo much fun and you definitely get a workout! =) There were various gidas and bhangra songs that was about 6 minutes long. The dance was originally put in the show only to get back at the guys in SIA for not letting the girls on the team that goes to Southern Bhangra Stampede. SBS, is a new intercollegiate bhangra competition. So, right before we went on stage, we had another guy say “Who says girls can’t do bhangra?” The eight girls in the dance were known as the Bhangra Gurlz, they were: Sana, Taruna, Ruth, Simi, Simran, Meenu, Aleea, and myself. =)

Diwali Show, Fall 2001: My first show was three months into my first semester of college. And believe me when I say I was shy like heck! Well .. okay that might not be hard to believe. The show was for Diwali, put up by ISA (Indian Students Association). Diwali is the festival of lights celebrated sometime in October or November depending on the Hindu calendar. The song was “koi kahe, khetha rahe,” from the movie Dil Chata Hai, and it was about college students talking about how they didn’t care what the world thought of them. Lets see if I can remember the names of everyone in the dance (there were 5 girls and 5 guys): Malini, Ritwika, Sana, Muditha, Karthik, Ashish S., Samant, Raghu, and I forgot the last person….sorry =( Unfortunately, I have no pictures of that show. =( So….I’ll go to the next one. =)