Seniors Juhi Karamcheti and Shaan Janardhan stood on the Bombay in the Bay stage for their last time, admiring the crowd of their classmates and families. Karamcheti’s performance on stage was explosive, emulating her desire to let everything out on the stage one last time. Janardhan smiled ear to ear, thinking of the charity his performance was for, and how many kids he would be able to help in India.
Karamcheti and Janardhan, along with seniors Arshia Desarkar, Gautham Jasti, Mihir Shaik, Naahur Sajwan and Saejel Thomas have been BnB choreographers for the past four years, which qualified them to be the leading officers of the Indian Cultural Awareness Club (ICAC) their senior year. With their new positions, the seniors gained responsibility over running the entire show, alongside choreographing the dances.
“It definitely was a big change,” Karamcheti said. “Going from just choreographing simple dances every year to now running the whole show was stressful.”
Officers are also in charge of the specialty acts on top of their grade’s dances: Tamasha, Bhangra, singing, All Male Dance (AMD) and All Girls Dance (AGD). Additionally, officers coordinate with McAfee head Chrissie Schwanhausser to decide lighting for the show, monitor other grades’ dances to ensure sufficient progress is being made and organize tickets sales and advertisement. BnB also runs on sponsorships from businesses such as Bayview Premier Properties, Ristorante Da Maria, Intero, ViBha Boutique, Cambridge Center for International Research and realtor David Welton, so officers manage these sponsorships and direct the extra money to charities.
This year, BnB gained around $10,000 from sponsors. The money is used to rent the McAfee, hire someone to clean up after the show, pay for decorations and costumes and cover other fees. Officers typically save $1,000 to $2,000 every year to support the next year’s initial costs.
During practices, Janardhan noted there a greater number of seniors participated — a total of 90 students — whereas other grades struggled with attendance issues. He attributes the difference to the increased free time seniors had after the end of the college application cycle.
“A large fraction of [our participants were] not Indian, so it’s nice to see Indian culture get appreciated this much. I was really happy with the senior participation this year,” Janardhan said.
It also becomes more difficult to stay creative when choreographing multiple dances. Choreographers such as Janardhan grew up watching Bollywood movies, and the dances they watched later became the inspiration for their choreography. Janardhan highlighted that Bollywood dance is different from western dance in the fact that it’s about choosing the best move for the beat rather than freestyling.
In contrast to class dances, Janardhan felt AMD was more difficult to choreograph because the dancers were more skilled, leaving him with more creative freedom. Not used to choreographing without restrictions, Janardhan found it harder to apply his newfound creativity.
There are only around 30 moves that can be used in Bollywood dancing, so, sometimes, Janardhan and his choreographers run into mental roadblocks of trying not to repeat moves. But, as it happens every year, Janardhan persisted through the challenges.
Choreographing a dance is a challenging and time consuming process. Karamcheti takes around an hour to complete each dance, totalling to five hours when choreographing for four to five dances.
Speciality acts are most tedious, both to choreograph and to teach, taking around 10-20 hours to choreograph and 30 hours to teach. Teaching for these speciality acts started all the way in the summer of 2024, and ended in January 2025.
Choreographers teach one move at a time during practice, first using counts to repeat the moves over and over again and familiarize. Once the choreography is learned, fun parts like formations and transitions can be added. Extra time is left over for the dancers to digest the choreography, practice and ask questions. Since people also have other commitments, videos are sent out to those who missed practice, and it is up to them to learn on their own.
Reflecting on his past four years with BnB, Janardhan remembers that there were times where he questioned why he continued, but hearing the crowd cheer during his performance was what kept him going.
“During the performance days and the dress rehearsals, there’s so much hype and it can be very stressful,” Janardhan said. “But the last few days before BnB and the actual performance itself creates a sense of community that you get from everyone being nervous and performing together. I think that’s what makes it worth it.”
The show raised $30,000 — around $20,000 from ticket sales and $10,000 from sponsorships. $26,000 went to Akshaya Patra, a charity that provides school lunches and other materials for children in India so they can help with their education. By serving healthy meals to kids in school, parents can continue to afford sending them to school and focus their money elsewhere. The $4,000 left over is donated to various school organizations, like funding for the Falcons Nest, a spot near the library where students can hang out and play ping pong.
It is estimated that $26,000 is enough money to feed around 1,600 kids for one year. Janardhan enjoys participating in BnB for the good cause, which was an additional motivator for him, through the long hours of work.
For Karamcheti, being close to her Indian culture through dance has been a value rooted within her throughout her childhood, so she hopes that others will participate in BnB like she did, and enjoy dancing and showcasing Indian culture through the experience.
“It’s really exciting to be able to put it all out there one last time and have people see it,” Karamcheti said. “And I get to come back because my sister is going to be performing in a few years.”
