The Red and Black

Issue date: 3/21/08 Section: Variety

Media Credit: JAKE DANIELS Anagha Kadambi dances with her group Wednesday during a rehearsal for India Night 2008: Jhankaar in the Dance Building. [Click to enlarge]

Bright, colorful swatches of color move across a stage, twisting and twirling in time to the echoing rhythms of Indian music coming through speakers.

India Night, an annual celebration held by the Indian Student Association, moves into the Morton Theatre Saturday.

"This is our first year going off campus," said Ankit Agrawal, a first-year microbiology graduate student from Allahabad, India.

ISA was founded more than 15 years ago at the University. It has held India Night each year since the organization's inception, Agrawal said.

"India Night is primarily to celebrate our own culture and to spread awareness," he said.

There are 59 performers from different age groups, including local high school students.

Agrawal said the event features a variety of modern and traditional dances from different regions of India, a band performance, singing and a skit.

Shaku Nair, a Ph.D student in entomology from Kerala, India, will be performing a Muslim bridal dance called Oppana.

"[It is] done on the day before the wedding by the bride's friends," she said.

Harshita Jagannathan, a graduate student in textiles, merchandising and interiors, will perform a dance. Called a "Dancing Trinity" by the participants, Jagannathan said its purpose is to compare three dance forms in India.

Jagannathan said the Trinity represents a competition between the popular, quick-paced celebratory dance styles of Southern India and the styles that draw influence from the West. The two forms duel it out on stage.

In the end, the Bharatnatyam dance enters the stage, said Jagannathan, "taking the focal point and conveying its supremacy over the other two forms of dance."

Agrawal said the event offers food from The Palace Indian Restaurant in Atlanta.

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