2008 Woodie Awards
Dance Competition Screams Success
Beat of Passion Strikes the Right Beat and Captures Young Audiences
Jeremy Slagle
Issue date: 10/14/04 Section: Feature
Given last year's amazing turnout and the promise of an even better year, it was no wonder that almost a thousand people showed up to what could be called one of the most popular student-run South Asian dance competitions of our day. Last Saturday night at Montclair State University, 10 college dance teams competed for $2,500 in prizes and the title of 'Beat of Passion 2004 Champion.'
Memorial Auditorium was host to Beat of Passion II, the sequel to a dance competition that left its mark among South Asian college students all over the country last year. The event was presented by ST Productions. Syed Naqvi and Tejas Sriprasad, both seniors at Rutgers University, founded it in 2002. After a huge success at BOP [which took place at Rutgers] Naqvi and Sriprasad challenged the odds to get a bigger, more technologically advanced space for this year's competition, and what better place to host it other than MSU's own Memorial Auditorium.
"Last year, we had about 700 people attend the event," Naqvi said. "This year, the number increased to approximately 900. We knew we needed a bigger space." At around 8 p.m., the lights flickered and the show was launched. Three MCs, all volunteer students from Rutgers and Seton Hall, hosted the event.
The theme for that night's dance event was "Confrontation." Each troupe had to portray a sense of competition and/or confrontation in their choreography. As an end result, some dances ended with a prominent winner and loser. Others preferred to portray the confrontation and leave it at that. Certain troupes had more creative ways of revealing their perception of the theme.
The night's proceedings began with an all-girls troupe from Massachusetts Institute of Technology called, Chamak, which in Hindi translates into 'brightness.'
Sure enough, the girls blinded the audience with their synchronized choreography, leaving the bar pretty high for other teams. They danced to remixed versions of Indian music, depicting conflict between two sides of dance. They incorporated styles of modern dance, Bharatnatyam (Indian classical dance from south India), Kathak (Indian classical dance from north India), and hip-hop. Like MIT's Chamak, other dance troupes also showed conflict between Indian and western styles of dance.
Memorial Auditorium was host to Beat of Passion II, the sequel to a dance competition that left its mark among South Asian college students all over the country last year. The event was presented by ST Productions. Syed Naqvi and Tejas Sriprasad, both seniors at Rutgers University, founded it in 2002. After a huge success at BOP [which took place at Rutgers] Naqvi and Sriprasad challenged the odds to get a bigger, more technologically advanced space for this year's competition, and what better place to host it other than MSU's own Memorial Auditorium.
"Last year, we had about 700 people attend the event," Naqvi said. "This year, the number increased to approximately 900. We knew we needed a bigger space." At around 8 p.m., the lights flickered and the show was launched. Three MCs, all volunteer students from Rutgers and Seton Hall, hosted the event.
The theme for that night's dance event was "Confrontation." Each troupe had to portray a sense of competition and/or confrontation in their choreography. As an end result, some dances ended with a prominent winner and loser. Others preferred to portray the confrontation and leave it at that. Certain troupes had more creative ways of revealing their perception of the theme.
The night's proceedings began with an all-girls troupe from Massachusetts Institute of Technology called, Chamak, which in Hindi translates into 'brightness.'
Sure enough, the girls blinded the audience with their synchronized choreography, leaving the bar pretty high for other teams. They danced to remixed versions of Indian music, depicting conflict between two sides of dance. They incorporated styles of modern dance, Bharatnatyam (Indian classical dance from south India), Kathak (Indian classical dance from north India), and hip-hop. Like MIT's Chamak, other dance troupes also showed conflict between Indian and western styles of dance.