{"id":6165,"date":"2024-04-27T11:29:30","date_gmt":"2024-04-27T15:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/?p=6165"},"modified":"2024-04-27T11:29:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-27T15:29:30","slug":"hunter-college-shikari-represents-south-asian-diversity-in-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/2024\/04\/hunter-college-shikari-represents-south-asian-diversity-in-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunter College Shikari Represents South Asian Diversity in Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Shikari Team at a SACC event this semester (Courtesy of Salina Qadri)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In her early years at Hunter, Taniya Bhambra, a senior majoring in Human Biology, found a familiar community within Hunter\u2019s South Asian Culture Club, or SACC. The club frequently held events and forged close friendships amongst members with similar cultural backgrounds. But one vital component of South Asian culture was lacking from SACC\u2019s events and activities \u2013 dance.<\/p>\n

Hoping to fill the gap, Bhambra recruited two fellow SACC members, Salina Qadri and Aisha Patel, to found Hunter College Shikari<\/a>, a South Asian fusion dance team. Since its founding in the fall of 2022, the club has gone from performing at one or two South Asian cultural events per semester to almost 10 this spring, with the help of their \u201csister club,\u201d SACC.<\/p>\n

\u201cSACC let us do our first ever performance at one of their events,\u201d said Qadri, a junior Psychology major and Shikari\u2019s vice president. \u201cIt started off there and we just got new DMs coming to us and we just kept growing as we kept performing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shikari\u2019s diversity and inclusion of dance styles, including Bhangra, Bharatanatyam, Bollywood Style, Indian Classical, Giddha, Kathak, and even hip-hop, has allowed their reach to expand beyond a typical culture club\u2019s scope. The team incorporates styles from the 10 members\u2019 various countries and regions including Punjab, Kerala, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

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Last year\u2019s Shikari members (Courtesy of Salina Qadri)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t think that we\u2019d be able to do Bharatanatyam, hip-hop, and Bhangra all together in one dance,\u201d said Bhambra. \u201cBut it\u2019s the collaboration of all the people who have different cultural backgrounds coming together and just making a beautiful piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each member brings a different level of experience and specialty dance style to the table. With some members dancing since their early childhood and others beginning as recently as high school, the team members frequently collaborate to choreograph and be as representative of different South Asian communities as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working together as a team. In the beginning, some of us are struggling and it might be a completely new style of dance,\u201d said Nicole Varghese, a junior majoring in Economics and Shikari member since last fall. \u201cAnd then at the end it all comes together and it\u2019s really rewarding to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Typically, the team meets for practice three times a week for two-hours. Bhambra and the board members handle the logistics of the club \u2013 organizing and booking events, creating mixtapes, choreographing routines, coordinating costumes and outfits, as well as teaching the choreography to the rest of the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best reward is once you finish that dance and you see everyone cheering,\u201d said Bhambra. \u201cAnd that everyone\u2019s happy and everyone on the team has the biggest smile because all the hard work paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Shikari performing at an NYU Bengali Students’ Association event in Fall 2022 (Courtesy of @hcshikari<\/a> on Instagram)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Shikari has performed for many CUNY clubs and across the city, including Hunter\u2019s Bengali Student Association, Queens College\u2019s South Asian Student Association, Baruch\u2019s Indian Student Association, John Jay\u2019s Pakistani Student Association, and Fordham University South Asian Entity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey bring such a vibrant and bright energy that gets everyone so hyped up, and just ready to dance, ready to party,\u201d said Hafsa Haque, a senior and treasurer of SACC. \u201cYou can always find me on the sidelines hyping them up.\u201d<\/p>\n

With its diversity, Shikari is malleable enough to cater to each of gig, focusing on a specific style depending on the event\u2019s purpose. Whether it’s a Mock Shaadi<\/a>, a Desi formal, or a holiday celebration, Shikari\u2019s performances help set the tone for the event and represent the host\u2019s occasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody thinks Indian culture is only Bollywood, but it\u2019s really not,\u201d said Neha Jacob, a sophomore and an original member of Shikari and the club’s current treasurer. \u201cThere\u2019s so many other dances that make up the Indian\/South Asian culture, and because our team is more open to all the other cultural dances, we kind of show snippets of everything to get people excited about our culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the founding board members\u2019 years at Hunter come to a close, newer members hope that the club will continue to gain popularity and expand its reach across more universities in New York.<\/p>\n

Shikari\u2019s next performance will be at SACC\u2019s Hunter Formal<\/a>, their finale event for the semester, on May 3 at Hunter\u2019s Brookdale campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her early years at Hunter, Taniya Bhambra, a senior majoring in Human Biology, found a familiar community within Hunter\u2019s South Asian Culture Club, or SACC. The club frequently held events and forged close friendships amongst members with similar cultural backgrounds. But one vital component of South Asian culture was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":6167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,324],"tags":[279,15,184,51,166,39],"class_list":["post-6165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-student-life","tag-huntercollege-hunterstudents","tag-cuny","tag-cuny-hunter-college","tag-dance","tag-hunterstudents","tag-performance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6165"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6210,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6165\/revisions\/6210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}