Just Dance!

Just Dance! In its 149 years of existence, MIT has been involved with many of the worlds firsts . This past weekend, MIT dived into yet another: the first intercollegiate Indian classical dance competition in the northeast! Through a collaboration with Boston Universitys dance team, Dheem, MIT Natya put on a show called Laasya, which means dance in Sanskrit. We had competitors from Penn, Rutgers, Harvard, Case Western, Johns Hopkins, and UMaryland; it felt nice to meet others who cared as much about dance as I did. As the host school, we didnt actually compete in the contest; we did, however, perform the opening number: Im really proud of this video! We practiced sooo much for this performance. It seriously feels as though I spent more of last week in dance practice than I did in class. Most everyone on MIT Natya has been walking around with bags underneath their eyes for quite some time now. Saturday (the day of our show) was particularly chaotic, though I admittedly had fun using the Build Your Own Pizza app on the Dominos website to order pizza for all the teams. MIT Natya is one of several dance teams on campus; I chose to be a part of it because Indian classical dance has been a part of my life for well over ten years now. Its been a huge outlet for me, an activity that compresses all of my pent-up frustration and energy and translates it into emphatic footsteps and sharp movements. Its easy to smile when performing on stage and even easier to forget that the audience is there. And dancing with the other members of MIT Natya is rejuvenating it feels like a lively celebration with the best of friends :) For your viewing pleasure, heres a set of photos from Laasya ~ all photo credit goes to Arfa 13. Oh and a shout-out to Brian 13, who not only supported MIT Natya by coming to Laasya but also desperately wanted to be mentioned in the blogs :)