Bollywood dance is defined as a type of Indian dance that fuses high energy bhangra, traditional and classical raas and many other dance styles including American hip-hop. For senior Divya Ramani, the purpose of Bollywood this year is to promote acceptance.
Ramani joined MV Bollywood as a freshman, as it was a perfect opportunity for her to display her passion for dance. She became captain her sophomore year, and president junior year. Throughout those years, MV Bollywood remained extremely important to Ramani. Along with three other officers, Ramani must choreograph dance routines for the whole team to learn and perform. MV Bollywood is a place where Ramani can feel free to express who she is through choreography inspired from Indian movies as well as her own creativity.
As president of Bollywood dance club, Ramani has a strong and wide background of dance.
“My mom signed me up for dance classes when I was five,” Ramani said, “I just really started to like it and continued ever since”.
While Ramani has other extracurriculars, including volunteering at El Camino Hospital and Organization of Special Needs Families, she holds the strongest passion for MV Bollywood and most of her time is devoted towards the club. To her, Bollywood is family.
“It used to be tough to balance everything, but I have other officers helping me and I’ve gotten used to it,” she said. “It can be stress relieving.”
After learning to manage her schedule and balance different aspects of her life, Ramani realized that MV Bollywood is an ideal place to increase variety of the club just as the Bay Area is diversified, and help students release stress in school.
Tryouts for the 2014 Bollywood team were held on Sept. 6. She and the three other officers, junior Shail Trivedi, senior Zoish Pithawala and junior Ajay Merchia, had to select ten people to join the team for a total of, totaling up to 14 dancers; the dancers were evaluated by their performance of a routine they had previously learned. Ramani and the other officers searched for a diverse group of dancers to boost widespread acceptance and continue to foster a family-like environment in the club.
Trivedi, captain of MV Bollywood, believes joining MV Bollywood is an opportunity to get to know different people and share their common love for dance.
“Greater diversity allows for people to realize that Bollywood is a fun activity that everyone can partake in and it isn’t specific to one group,” said Trivedi.
The club is open to people of all backgrounds. Junior Melodie Liu, being the only Chinese member on MV Bollywood, poses an example of this.
“[Bollywood] really loves diversity,” Liu said, “and I have so much fun performing with other members.”
Ramani hopes to increase the variety so that there is a greater amount of people who, regardless of race, appreciate MV Bollywood as a dance team and for its welcoming environment.
“I definitely think Bollywood is like a second home for me and other members,” Ramani said. “We get really close throughout the year. I meet many friends and bond.”
MV Bollywood strongly influences Ramani outside of MVHS as well. Ramani’s college applications and essays are impacted by the passion she holds for dance, along with the diversity that she hopes to achieve through the club. In college Ramani hopes to establish a Bollywood dance team, if one does not exist, and hopes to continue doing what she loves while keeping an open mind to all types of people. Her growth in the club has helped Ramani to highlight the idea of unity and common ground between disparities, a value that Ramani will hold even after high school.
As a whole, Ramani hopes MV Bollywood will develop so students can create and keep strong friendships with people who differentiate, and assist wider scale tolerance in society.
