Sanskrithi Diaries Part 1 - The Beginning

Dance is an expression of emotions, a display of drama, a show of splendour, and simply, an extravaganza of colors, lights, music and beauty. For me, dance will always mean one thing, Sanskrithi.

I’ve had some amazing memories with Sanskrithi, its founders – my seniors, my team-mates, my juniors and everyone else who was connected with the team. Here’s an attempt to recollect some of them J

During my first year at PESIT, I was a part of the large crowd in the auditorium, attending the auditions for Sanskrithi. After all the auditions were over, I remember asking the three people on stage, “What is contemporary dance?”.  Little did I know that Contemporary Dance would become such an important part of my life in the years to come!

During our first practice session, I remember all of us were very nervous and scared of not getting the steps right. But Raghu, Chithra and Nisha made us feel like a part of the group and patiently taught us all that they knew. I got to meet other seniors of the group and saw how the team functioned as a family and how each and every one of them made me feel like I was a part of their family too. After our performance at MANage (where we won 2^nd place) , there was a change in the team and our team now consisted of Arya, Harshna, Preethi, Rashmi, Sahana, Sahithya, Sushma and me.

Initially, the eight of us used to perform the “Junior” Dashavataar, and used to watch in awe when our seniors performed the “Senior”/”Kanpur” Dashavataar. Dashavataar – even now, I get goose bumps thinking about it. The beautiful and haunting music, the creativity behind the formations, the way each step fit perfectly with the music, the use of props and the effect that this dance had on the audience… this dance was truly a masterpiece.

Our first stint at choreography was when Raghu told us to work on a part of “Trimurthi”. We worked quite hard in hostel to come up with some steps or the other, but I think we eventually copied a lot of steps from “Junior” Dashavataar!

Slowly, we became better and better at our dances and learnt how to work together as one team. We performed at many fests all over Bangalore and in other places too, winning almost everywhere we went!