In most clubs, the officer team is comprised of experienced leaders, with some being second year officers. But that’s not the case for MV Andaaz, whose leaders for the 2016-2017 school year are all new.

Originally, the four member captain team had one returning captain along with three new ones. Even with one returning captain, junior and new captain Aurum Kathuria, says that they anticipated the year would be challenging.

“We were all like ‘Alright, this is going to be a tough year,’” Kathuria said. “‘We’ve only got one person but it’s ok, we can power through it.’”

And then the old captain decided not to return to Andaaz, leaving the dance club in the hands of four new leaders.

“It was just like ‘How are we going to get through this?’” Kathuria said. “‘This is going to be a lot of work, a lot of learning, a lot of mistakes, and we’re just going to have to hope that the office and everyone around us is willing to let us learn from this slowly.”

The captain team, which is composed of Kathuria, sophomore Eesha Moona, junior Dhruv Parikh, and sophomore Manasi Vats, has done a lot of learning this year, whether it’s figuring out how to hold a fundraiser or planning out the goals for Andaaz.

“Definitely it’s been really difficult just adapting to all of the situations without a lead, without someone who’s already done it. But it’s also kind of liberating at the same time because we can take the group to its own different direction that we want to see,” Moona said. “It’s our club now.”

The captain team itself is very close-knit according to Moona and Parikh, with Moona and Vats being best friends and Parikh and Kathuria being best friends. All have been a part of Andaaz since freshman year. This year, they hope that Andaaz can maintain its reputation as a good dance team as well as make Tashan, the club’s biggest event of the year, two shows instead of one. According to Parikh, last year, Tashan was rushed and Andaaz only had one night show. But this year, they plan to have one in the afternoon and one at night.

Although Andaaz has entirely new leadership, the captains still hope to continue their success from the previous year.

“Last year was such a great year for us, I think it was because it was the height of our senior captains, they had so much experience. We don’t want to let that diminish just because we have a new captainship,” Moona said. “So we want to bring it up to that same level; at the same time, we also want to attempt to figure out things we weren’t able to get done last year.”