Audience members at Watters Theatre were taken on an upbeat and colorful tour of Indian culture on Saturday night at the 18th annual performance, Tamasha: The Last Dance, put on by the Indian International Student Union (IISU).
Freshmen of IISU dawned colorful and sparkling outfits to open the night with a high-energy welcoming dance, which was followed by over 70 students performing traditional Indian dances with Western influences, a fashion show and a comedic skit about two girls, Priya and Divya, who wanted to be Bollywood dancers.
Jonathan Vayalumkal, the president of IISU, said that IISU hosts Tamasha every fall semester and the club choreographs the dances, mixes the music for the performances, and films, writes, directs and acts in the skit. This was their first time incorporating an a cappella group.
“We use Tamasha as an opportunity for IISU members to experience new things and foster the exposition of culture on Binghamton’s campus,” said Vayalumkal, a senior majoring in integrative neuroscience. “We have a thriving South Asian community on our campus and Tamasha is the highlight of our cultural programming for the year.”
The classical dance, which combined many older forms of dance that use intricate hand and foot movements, started off in darkness with slower music as dancers carried around lit candles. As the lights began to fade, a bright red background illuminated the dancers and they began to dance, jump and spin as music picked up.
A cappella group Bollywood Beats performed for the first time at Tamasha, and fused pop songs like “Diamonds in the Sky” by Rihanna with classic Indian songs performed in Hindi. Reema Shah, an undeclared freshman who performed a solo, said that practicing to sing in both English and Hindi became natural over time.
“It just works,” Shah said. “It’s obviously a bit different at first but practicing one [song] helps you with the other. They both help each other.”
Members of the Korean American Student Association (KASA) closed the night with a lively and dynamic performance filled with sharp and precise movements to modern music like rap and hip-hop, which drew some of the biggest cheers of the night.
One of the routines was by Binghamton Masti, an all-girl South Asian-inspired dance team, which incorporated many styles of dance into their routine including Bollywood, Bhangra, hip-hop and classical. Their dance included props such as batons that they broke over their knees mid-dance and wooden sticks which they used to drum on the floors.
Anisha Mahajan, a senior majoring in biology, performed in two dances, the fashion show and played Priya in the skit. She said that her favorite part of the night was the Mixed Moda, where there was a dance-off between the underclassmen who performed a hip-hop routine and the seniors who performed a more traditional Bollywood number.
“The seniors got really close and we got to dance together which was nice because we hadn’t done that since freshman year,” Mahajan said. “I think we put in a lot of effort and we got to see the results: Everyone clapping and cheering and having fun.”