“The people there were extremely talented,” Thakur recalls. “It was a very humbling experience.”

It all started last spring when another Ishaara dancer got the idea to try out for the show. Viswanathan and Thakur joined a small subset of the team who traveled to Los Angeles to audition in May. They were selected to participate in the live TV show and for four weeks in August and September competed against 47 other acts in hopes of impressing the show’s three judges and its TV audience enough to win $1 million and a headline show in Las Vegas.

“At each round, I thought, ‘This is as far as we’ll get,’ and then we got a little farther,” adds Viswanathan, this year’s head captain. “Each round was a gift. Priceless. It was fun.”

Love has a way of being fun, and Viswanathan and Thakur love Bollywood dance, those energetic musical numbers popularized in India’s Bollywood films. In keeping with the genre, almost every dance routine involves a love story with a happy ending. “It’s West Side Story plus High School Musical times a lot of color,” explains Thakur.

Viswanathan and Thakur have been dancing to Bollywood music since age six. “My mom made me do it,” quips Viswanathan, smiling. Thakur nods in agreement; his mom also enrolled him in a local children’s dance group. It was a way to keep American-raised children steeped in Indian culture. By high school, both teens were hooked. “This was my niche, and I instantly wanted to be the best at it,” Viswanathan says.

A group of now-graduated students first formed Cal’s Bollywood dance team in 2001. The most recent iteration, Ishaara (which means symbolic foreshadowing or a glimpse of things to come in Hindi), competes at several collegiate competitions every year; in 2008, the team won Best of the Best and this year took third at Bollywood Berkeley.

Like so many relationships, Ishaara is a time-intensive one. Since joining their freshman year, Viswanathan and Thakur, who first met on the team, spend up to 25 hours a week at dance practice, which often takes place at night in an underground parking lot. That doesn’t include travel to competitions and the day-to-day operations associated with being in a dance troupe.

How do they do it as engineering students?  “It’s tough,” says Viswanathan, who is also involved in insect biology research this semester. “At the end of the day, it’s about balancing academics, extracurricular activities and social stuff. I don’t have much time for relaxation.”

Both men bring an engineering mindset to the group, from using math to help time their choreography to making props, as well as an engineer’s sense of perfection. “You put in all this time and effort for eight happy minutes on stage,” Thakur explains. “When the music starts, you have to perform. The audience has to love what you’re doing. No mistakes.” Dancing is also a welcome break from classes, he says.

So what is Viswanathan and Thakur’s happy ending? Both hope to go to medical school after graduation, they say, but won’t rule out pausing those plans to dance if the opportunity arises. Bollywood, a shameless flirt, beckons.

View Full Article at Center of Innovation at UC Berkeley

More details coming soon!

More details coming soon!

America’s got talent, and scores join reality/talent hunt shows each month. They are appealing, compelling and seize audiences attention. But Ishaara’s troupe has taken America by storm, the TV reality show America’s got talent on NBC has been grooving to Bollywood like never before. Their eyecatching costumes, killer dance moves had smiling judges with their ‘socks knocked off’, bringing audience and show’s anchor on their feet, dancing with them; all dunked and dazzled in their high-energy, colorful and powerful performances wowing everyone right from the day of the auditions to their last performance where audience just wouldn’t stop making noise.

From their dynamic rendition of Jai Ho to Pappu can’t dance, they enraptured America to the tunes of Bollywood song and dance, which after Slumdog, has become more than evident. Ishaara was all set to create a new platform for Bollywood in the land of Hollywood, before being eliminated from the much watched show.

Coming from Berkeley, this exotic group is the first generation Indians in America, who are proud of their roots and are keen to explore modern dance style found in Hindi movies today, want communities across US to see the coercive act.

Of the ten terrific dancers (all aged beteween 18-22) that make Ishaara Dance, all are either currently studying in University of California, Berkley or recently graduated. Lead by Shahil Patel and Sian Bentson, they have all come together with a strong passion of dance; they crave about bringing Bollywood to America.

But why Bollywood music?

Bollywood has been an intrinsic part of all their lives, call it their connection with India, when they thought of dance, nothing else came in their minds but the synergy of Bollywood dance that has the capability to entertain and make people smile.

With passion for dance so strong, They are an award winning troupe having performed at inter-college competitions and also at many dance festivals across nation.

Their dedication: Practicing late evening in their parking garage, stitching their own jazzy dance costumes and forming their unique style of heart wrenching drama and powerful music, wooing everyone. America’s Got Talent has brought them out in the open, they are now gearing up for the real action that awaits these extremely talented and galvanized entertainers.

View Full Article at NBC Bay Area By Ramona Giwargis

They didn’t disappoint.

The group, which is composed of 15 students from UC Berkeley, danced to the song “Jai Ho” from the soundtrack to the hit movie “Slumdog Millionaire.”

They received a standing ovation from the audience and all three judges voted to send them to the next round of the contest in Las Vegas.

Jude Piers Morgan described the performance as “brilliant.”

Ishaara has won several intercollegiate competitions over the past few years. Their members rehearse up to 20 hours each week in addition to attending school.

View Full Article at Mona Darling