Global Village week’s second day of celebration took place Tuesday, March 10 in the main commons through a display of international dancing. Fifty-three upperclassmen and two underclassmen dressed in traditional Indian clothing, danced with partners and showed off their stunts and twirls during A and B lunch. 

The six-part dance began with “Saturday, Saturday,” a dance with all 55 members, followed by the girls only dances — “Sheila Ki Jawani” and “O Saki Saki” — with the guys watching and cheering from the edges. After that the boys re-entered from the sidelines for two partner dances — “Bom Diggy Diggy” and “Ab Toh Forever” — which ended with the girls exiting on either side. Finishing the dance with two guy feature songs — “Muqabla” and “Aankh Marey” — the boys lifted senior Sergio Pico for the finale. 

Although there were only two partner dances, pairings created tension, and some students had to recruit a partner just days before the assembly. Additionally, some girls had to pair with other girls in the back of the dance because of a shortage of male participants. 

“A lot of people were unhappy with their partners,” junior leader Tia Rawat said, “and it was impossible to please everyone, which made things a little tense.”

Another issue that arose was a music mishap at the Courtwarming assembly. The group of students who

danced today also had already performed once then, but technological difficulties abruptly stopped their moment at center stage. Having the song cut off early, the assembly ended without fixing or replaying the music. 

“After the whole assembly disaster, a lot of people were sad that we didn’t get to show-off all of what we had worked so hard and spent so much time on,” Rawat said. “It felt pretty terrible to have asked for such a big commitment from the guys and to be let down during the assembly performance because of a technological problem …  Having the song cut off and standing frozen with a crowd watching expectantly was not fun, but it was worse being told to get off the stage and hearing an announcement that the assembly was over when [we] still had the finale part of the performance left.”

More than a month of practicing multiple times a week before and after school culminated in just three performances, each approximately seven minutes in length. Rawat and fellow leader senior Kanchan Hans dedicated their AUTs and three weekends to work on choreography.

“It was quite a time commitment, and it was also difficult to get everyone to come to practices, but I enjoyed it and had fun teaching the dance whilst getting to know new people,” Rawat said. “The dance helped build a lot of friendships and relationships. It was a super cool bonding experience. And for the people who stuck with the dance up to the performance, I could not have asked for a better group of people. We did better than I ever expected, and I’m so proud.”

School is out Wednesday, March 11, but the Global Village week festivities continue on Thursday with an international fashion show.

Did you see the Indian dance performance? Let us know in the comments.