After a year of preparation, Indian Students Association, ISA, is set to showcase a melting pot of musical numbers with both Indian and western roots. The show will feature competing teams from universities around Texas that encompass a variety of entertainment forms.
Anusha Achukola, ISA president and nutritional sciences senior, said Sangam aims to promote cultural diversity within Texas A&M.
“[Sangam] is a way for people to learn and be a part of Indian culture in an entertaining way,” Achukola said. “It’s also a great way to understand different cultural styles within Indian dancing and singing, and getting to see the elaborate costumes that go into it.”
Urvi Chikhliya, ISA vice president and bioenvironmental sciences junior, said Indian entertainment as a whole doesn’t fit into a single classification — different regions within India have distinctive styles of dance.
“The teams performing are acapella groups, Bollywood fusion dance and traditional raas and bhangra styles,” Chikhliya said. “It’s cool to see people our age still holding onto their culture.”
A participating A&M dance team, Wreckin’ Raas, will showcase the Dandiya Raas dance style of Gujarat, India. Pratik Mandaliya, team co-captain and kinesiology junior, said the team has been preparing for Sangam as they would a national competition.
“We started choreographing a routine in September and have been practicing since,” Mandaliya said. “This time around, we’re making the routine more crowd-oriented and involving dancing to a blend of Indian and American music.”
Achukola said the talent show is for all students — not just Indian students.
“We’re trying to promote diversity within the university,” Achukola said. “We want to show what our culture is like and raise awareness.”
The Sangam talent show takes place at 5 p.m. Friday in Rudder Auditorium.