The tight-knit Raas-Garba team members represent MVHS in hopes of promoting their culture

It takes two to tango, but 12 to raas. This year, co-captains junior Divya Sriram, senior Sarika Patel and senior Keerthana Sankar are part of the returning team looking for new members. Tryouts were held on Oct. 22 at 3:30 p.m.in the Cafeteria.

Sriram and Sankar both dance outside of school, and hope to bring raas to the MVHS community and share their passion. They hope to contribute through choreography and teaching the members the steps to the north Indian dance.

“I think it’s a good way to show my Indian culture. It was [also] a good way to spend my Friday nights, to have fun [with this] non-academic thing,” Sriram said. “I don’t do sports or anything, so it was a good avenue for me to be on the team.”

Raas largely depends on the captains’ and members’ dedication. As a team, they meet on a weekly basis to rehearse their choreography. As a completely student-based team, it is the captains’ responsibility as well as members’ to make sure that each and every person puts their best foot forward.

However, it is exactly this dependency that has brought the members together. To senior Swetha Balaji, being on the team last year helped her expand her social circle.

“I used to dance outside of school, but I still wanted to dance, so [I decided to join Raas],” said Balaji. “I made a lot of friends, and [Raas helps me] stay close to them.”

Sriram tries to keep these tight member relationships. She believes that last year’s member bonding, the team sleepover, played a huge role in keeping the team motivated. The captains feel that the team overall had a successful season last year due to their tight member-to-member relationship. Sankar hopes that this will be the prime deciding factor on how well the team does this year.

“Last year was our second year [dancing], so we got to a place where we felt like we were known, made a stance, but we’ve still got a long way to go,” Sankar said. “I really think we can do a lot better and make our team get up there.”

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