Spotlite on India is an annual Indian cultural showcase, hosted by MVHS Indo-American Student Association. This year, Spotlite features 14 singing and dancing acts and will be held on May 20 and 21. Below, group members discuss their Spotlite preparation.

Raas

Featuring: Maalini Bommakanti (12),  Tanuja Gobbur (12), Priya Kini (10), Ankita Koratkar (12), Aparna Manoj (10), Rhea Modi (10), Riyana Patel (12), Aarushi Shah (10), Goonja Shah (11), Kinnari Shah (12), Kritika Sharma (11), Nandita Somayaji (12), Samhitha Tarra (10), Anitra Varhadkar (11)

Raas is a dance team that incorporates the traditional Indian dance style Raas, which is native to the Indian state of Gujarat. The dance traditionally uses colorfully decorated sticks known as Dandias. Captain junior Goonja Shah describes the art form as upbeat and pretty.

This year, for Spotlite, the team will be performing a 6 minute routine that will incorporate traditional Raas elements along with more contemporary aspects, such as English songs and stunts. The team believes this makes the dance more appealing to the MVHS audience.

The Spotlite routine is choreographed and performed throughout the entire year. According to Captain senior Riyana Patel, the team adds on songs to their routine throughout the year. The routine the team prepares for Spotlite will have all the planned songs for the year.

However, according to Captain senior Nandita Somayaji, the team has added a new component specifically for Spotlite.

“We’re going to be adding stick throwing, which means we’re going to be tossing up [dandias] to each other and catching another person’s dandia,” Somayaji said. “We add that solely for Spotlite because we want to make it different than the rest of them.”

The Raas year has been a long and fun-filled one for the girls. Since Raas is a very different style of dance for some team members, it can be a little difficult at first. Shah takes pride in the team members’ ability to pull through.

“I’m actually really proud of my girls,” Shah said. “At the beginning of the year we weren’t that great, but I think we have come a long way, and props to them for pulling it together and kind of dealing with the captains and our expectations.”

Throughout the year, Spotlite has definitely been a source of conversation among the team.

“Whenever we sit down and we talk, someone always brings up Spotlite from other years,” sophomore Priya Kini said. “It’s always like ‘yeah just wait for Spotlite it’s going to be the best, it’s going to be so emotional and it’s also going to be really fun.’ I’ve watched Spotlite before, but I really want to be a part of it.”

One of Shah’s fondest Raas memories is from her time at Spotlite 2015. During her sophomore year, Raas was the act after intermission and they had all formed a huddle for their pre-performance pep talk. The team had been told that intermission was going to be extended, so as the cold and nervous team waited for their turn on the stage, they started singing the routine.

“We just got louder and louder and louder and we sang the entire mix and by the end we were just screaming,” Shah said. “It was such a nice moment.”

Since Spotlite is usually the last performance of the year for the team, and also the one at their own school, it carries an extra weight for the team as they share the stage with their seniors one last time.

“It’s my last year doing Raas so it’s really sentimental,” Patel explains. “It’s going to get emotional, I know I’m going to miss the team so much but I’m just really excited to end the year really strong with my team.”

Sophomore Singing Group

Featuring: Santosh Sivakumar (10), Gokul Pillai (10), Mahita Tatavarthy (10), Swati Chayapathi (10), Srinidhi Balaraman (10)

The sophomore singing group incorporates classical as well as contemporary elements in their act. The song that the group has so far, combines the two styles, sophomore Gokul Pillai said.

The act itself is intended to be about five to six minutes in length and is expected to have an additional song, along with a track that mixes two different songs.

“It’s more Hindustani as well as film music,” sophomore Mahita Tatavarthy said. “I thought the song we’re choosing is a fun experience because it’s trying something new as well as what we’ve been learning.”

Tatavarthy started to learn Carnatic, a type of South Indian classical music at the age of five. In fact, all the group members are very familiar with Carnatic as well as contemporary styles.

“My family is pretty musical so just being around people like that has just gotten my interest in music,” sophomore Srinidhi Balaraman said.

Sophomore Santosh Sivakumar performed last year with Carnatic Crew, an all Carnatic singing group. But this year, Sivakumar thinks it’s going to be a different experience.

“I’m pretty familiar with [the styles of music],”  Sivakumar said. “I don’t have any experience in nonclassical music but I don’t think anyone really does, it’s just you pick it up. I know classical music, I’ve been learning for a while and so has everyone. This year I think it’s going to be a different experience just because I’m a lot closer to the people I’m doing it with and it’s also a social experience.”

Group member sophomore Swati Chayapathi is also doing something different from the classical dance solo she performed last year. The preparation experience, however, does not seem to be that different for her.

“Both dancing and singing are really big parts of life so it’s not that much of a difference because I enjoy them both equally.” Chayapathi said. “Because it’s the same show, the preparation is the same, we all have to put in the same amount of work.”

The group is still in the initial stages of their preparation and is determining their song choices before they move on to determining other stylistic elements of their act, such as musical instruments.

“We have met up during lunch a couple of times and even though we’ve also practiced we’ve also had some messing around too,” Pillai said. “It’s fun and we still have time so we should be able to get our work done too.”

Senior Classical Group

Featuring: Shreya Adloori (12), Maalini Bommakanti (12), Gayathri Kalla (12), Shalini Kunapuli (12)

The senior-classical dance group started out with slightly different intentions.

The choreography was supposed to be Bollywood, but considering almost all of the group members are classical dancers it has more of a classical look to it, senior Gayathri Kalla said.

The act is intended to be around seven minutes and features songs from mainstream Bollywood, but also carries elements of classical dance mixed in with more of a contemporary style. The fact that the choreography may diverge from the original intentions isn’t a source of regret for Kalla, who sees the act as the “best of both worlds.”

“Since we all, to some extent have classical training, it’s nice to be able to keep that aspect of it, because that’s what I am comfortable dancing with,” Kalla said. “But it’s also, able to change it, take in the great moves you see in Bollywood movies and try to pull it all together.”

The act is coming together, slowly but surely. The team started a little late and have completed one and a half minutes of their routine.

“We’re definitely going to try to put in more effort earlier so the end result is better,” senior Shalini Kunapuli said.

Spotlite definitely holds a sentimental value for the girls. Kunapuli who was an emcee for the show last year sees this dance group as dream come true.

“Doing a dancing act in Spotlite has been something I’ve wanted to do since I first saw Spotlite in ninth grade,” Kunapuli said.

For Kalla, Spotlite represents a connection with her friends.

“The reason I tried out is because it’s my last year and my friends, we’ve been friends since freshman year. It’s a nice culmination of our friendship,” Kalla said.

Senior Bollywood Group

Featuring: Shrey Butle (12), Radhika Dhomse (12), Keerthi Krishnan (12), Ajay Merchia (12), Niti Pawar (12), Rohith Ravindranath (12), Atharva Rohatgi (12), Kinnari Shah (12), Nandita Somayaji (12), Kaavya Sundar (12), Shail Trivedi (12), Janani Vijaykumar (12)

The senior group act is based off a Bollywood movie. Along with seven minutes of dance to modern Bollywood songs, the acts also features dialogue and a plot line modeled after the Hindi Film, Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. The movie title, translated to “My Brother’s Wife,” is about a man who tries to find his brother a wife, but ends up falling in love with her instead.

Since the process of fitting an act to a storyline is a long one, the group started preparing earlier in the year.

This year the group started around December, as they needed to determine logistics such as costumes, choreography and participants, Senior Rohith Ravindranath said.

“In freshman year I started around February or March, and that was not a good choice,” Ravindranath said.

Ravindranath thinks that one of the key aspects of preparing for Spotlite is time management, something that senior Janani Vijaykumar agrees with. Vijaykumar has performed at Spotlite for all four years of her high school career, and thinks that with each passing year, the logistics of the show get easier to understand. So this year, her two Spotlite acts made a point to get started earlier to make sure they were on track for the show.

Although a big commitment, Spotlite does bring the group together.

“We usually have an hour before [our choreography sessions] where we’re waiting for everyone to come,” Ravindranath said. “It’s like our chill session. We have an hour after we practice where we just go to Memorial Park and hang out.”

Senior Shail Trivedi also really appreciates the memories he’s made with his friends during their practices.“I think a lot of times when we’re not sure what we are going to do for our next step, all of us pitch ideas, and someone says something really dumb,” Trivedi said. “It might be me sometimes, and we all start laughing, it’s a crazy moment. Just being there with friends is a lot of fun.”

All the members of the senior group have performed at Spotlite in the past, except senior Kaavya Sundar. Although Sundar has participated in the technical aspect of Spotlite, this will be her first year performing.

“This is the first time I’m actually doing Bollywood dancing,” Sundar said. “Everyone’s had experience, I have not. I just wanted to try it because two years ago my sister was in a senior group and she had a lot of fun.”

Although she’s looking forward to her performance, Sundar recognizes that dancing is a completely different tune than working on tech.

“You’re pleasing an audience as a performer, but for tech you’re just trying to make sure that performers are okay with the technical stuff,” Sundar said.

As a new dancer, Sundar’s expectations aren’t as high for herself, but she expects it to be really fun.

Senior Keerthi Krishnan has a more relaxed outlook towards Spotlite.

“We feel pretty confident, I think all of us are really good, we have good choreographers and we also have good teammates so we are all willing to put in the effort to really make it good,” Krishnan said. “It’s just a fun thing, whatever happens will happen.”

This story is a the first part of a two part piece regarding the participant’s Spotlite on India expectations and experience, the second part of which will be posted after the show.

Videos by Devika Watave