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“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

Despite falling short in making the next round on NBC’s hit show America’s Got Talent last week, members of Ishaara said performing before a national audience would aid their efforts to make Bollywood dancing a more mainstream element in American culture.

The group was founded two years ago by UC Berkeley students Shahil Patel and Sian Bentson, who both graduated last May. Out of the 20 current and former UC Berkeley student members, 10 were given the chance to perform on the show when the group was first featured last month.

After several months of dance practice leading up to their debut on the show, the group beat out more than 70 other Bollywood dance teams to become the sole representative of the style on the show in July, said Patel, a double major in economics and psychology.

Though relatively unknown to their peers on campus, Ishaara has won first place in many local competitions from Bollywood Berkeley to competitions across the country like Phillyfest, a major South Asian dance festival in Philadelphia, Pa.

By the time their audition tape was viewed by the show’s casting directors, the group had already made a name for itself within the South Asian community nationwide, said Nickesh Viswanathan, a Ishaara member who performed on the show.

“We feel pretty unknown on campus and that’s partially our fault,” he said. “But in the South Asian community we’re pretty well known.”

Ornate and colorful costumes, playful gestures and an ability to engage the audience caught the notice of the show’s judges, including former newspaper editor Piers Morgan who described their performance as “unbelievably exciting to watch, original and fresh.”

Patel and Bentson said that the experience and support they received while filming for the show was rewarding.

“It’s nice to be recognized for what we did because we put a lot of effort into it,” Patel said. “It’s exciting for us to see that the school and people affiliated with the school are supporting us. We did our best to represent Berkeley on the show.”

Bentson, who graduated with an environmental science degree, said that she studied tap dancing for ten years before trying Bollywood dance. In contrast, Patel had little interest in dancing before coming to UC Berkeley.

“I never liked dancing growing up, I was anti-dance,” Patel said. “But when I came to UC Berkeley, I thought to try something different and it has the competitive drive and a lot of skills and footwork.”

They said the experience would aid them in fulfilling the group’s long-term ambitions.

“America’s Got Talent was a good avenue for (Ishaara) because it’s a variety show,” Patel said. “It’s not limited to one dance style or any style of talent. It provided the best avenue for us to showcase Bollywood dance.”

Bentson added that since their first television appearance in July, changes have been made in future plans.

“We’re hoping to take our team to a more professional level,” she said. “That would be my ideal profession right now. I am hoping this can open a lot of doors for us. I don’t really see myself having a normal, mindless job.”

View Full Article at The Daily Californian

I am really glad Ishaara stepped up. I know how hard it is to put so many things on hold to take a chance like this. I have seen this team perform every year for the last four years and every year they have become better. Maybe it has to do with my dance competition reviews or maybe it just has to do with their hard work and dedication, or maybe it’s Maybelline. I’m going to pretend it was the first one because I have nothing else going on with my life. This team is not a fluke like Kashif or Sanjaya. This is one of the most talented teams in the Fusion/Hindi Film competitions. I can’t wait to see what they have in store and hopefully start dating some of them.

Check out my reviews for older Berkeley Ishaara dance numbers below. I really hope they make it until the end of this season. Ishaara doesn’t know this but I met them once and they are really awesome individually. I even tried to hit on the girl with the sexy, raspy voice. They definitely deserve all the praise and all the hype. Curry Bear, along with just about every other Desi dance team, will be rooting for Ishaara every week and voting! The farther this team gets on this show, the more people will recognize our dance competitions. Someone on the DDT forums said it best.

With Ishaara’s success lies the whole desi dance scene’s success. Many people who don’t even know about all the desi dance activity here in the US will now know about it. The competitions will be recognized, the teams will be recognized, most importantly, the dance will be. It’s success overall for everyone.

Yesterday was indeed a big moment in the desi dance competition scene and it will be a day that many of us will look back on. Congrats again Ishaara! Just don’t forget about Curry Bear when you guys are headlining in Vegas!

You already made us proud. Now make us live vicariously through your victory.

Here is the Ishaara 2008 performance review.

View Full Article at Curry Bear

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