India is not just one culture, says India Club choreographer
Cynthia Stephen, a sophomore from Delhi, India, majoring in hospitality and tourism management, said one of the costumes being worn during Culture Night was a sharara, a pair of flared pants that hang loose around the legs to allow for more movement in dancing, but resemble a skirt. The sharara is topped off by a long upper–body garment called a kurti and a long scarf placed over the head and shoulders called a dupatta. “We’re gonna perform a few songs wearing that,” said Stephen.
Caroline James, a junior student from Mumbai, India, majoring in information technology, served as choreographer for the India Club. “For the first song, we have five different colors, which we want to represent how diverse and vibrant India is. And for the rest of the songs, we have different colors that will be really colorful and show the diversity of India.”
According to James, India is now the world’s most populous country, surpassing China at 1.42 billion people. She said it was difficult to represent such a diverse country in a single club, emphasizing, “We all have different cultures. We don’t have the same culture.
“We are not only performing Hindi songs. We have Tamil songs. We have Telugu songs. We’re gonna show all the cultures all together in our performance.
“The first song itself is a folk dance and we’re wearing our nauvari sari,” said James. A sari is a long stretch of fabric draped over the body like a robe, and nauvari means nine yards, according to Sundarisilks.com. “And
that is typically worn in the dance we’re going to do, which is a Marathi folk dance,” said James.
Thanush Prathapan, a freshman from Bengalaru, India, majoring in psychology, said the clothes for Culture Night come with the culture and the history of India. “Usually the women’s dresses they wear are heavy and more costly than what the men wear. Usually they wear white, with a white shirt on and white-colored dhoti,” which is a white piece of unstitched, knotted cloth wrapped around the legs and waist.