The Indian Student Association held their Cultural Show as part of their Sanskriti Festival Sunday afternoon in Forum Hall. It was the flagship of the day for the ISA, who earlier had been holding an exhibit in the K-State Student Union Courtyard.
The show began promptly once the audience arrived. The lights were shut off immediately and the introductions were made by the two hosts. They had a bit of impromptu comedy between every act to produce laughs and establish a theme for the next act. It started a competition among the announcers to see who could tell the better joke.
The show began with a few traditional dances. The stage was lighted up so everything was bright and the dancers wore very bold colors. This contrasted with the more modern Bollywood dance numbers that were sprinkled in where the performers wore more monochrome colors and they danced in the spotlight.
Ranjit Godavarthy, graduate Ph.D. student in civil engineering, performed one of the Bollywood numbers.
“We really wanted to get the audience into the celebration,” said Ranjit. “We picked this song because it is a big hit in South India and we knew the audience knew the words. I think it worked very well. Many stood up, sang and clapped along.”
Krishna Kiran, president of the ISA, explained the purpose of the cultural show and the performances.
“Sanskriti is a symbol of cultural tradition of India,” said Kiran. “We had many traditional dances and some more modern ones to reach everyone. We have this every year but something new this year was we had a Sri Lankan and African group also participate.”
Kiran said that this time in November is the best time for the show because no one has left for school break yet and it doesn’t interfere with finals.
Madhumitha Loganathan, graduate student in computer science, said they enjoyed a number of performances.
“I enjoyed the last performance,” Loganathan said. “The theme of friendship shown through dance was interesting. My favorite was one of the earlier dances. It was an Odissi performance and doing one of those is very hard, so I liked that.”
Loganathan said that one of the shows best features was the mix of singing and dancing.
“It was the total package not all of one kind either,” said Loganathan, “I liked the musical skit. It incorporated a little of everything and it was funny.