Courtesy of the Indian Cultural Awareness Club (ICAC)
This year’s ICAC officers pose for a photo in traditional attire on Jan. 17.For senior Kritika Kalani, who is lead choreographer for the All Girls Dance, her final Bombay in the Bay (BnB) performance spells out pressure to perform. Even with about 50 senior participants — fewer than past years numbers of closer to 100 — this year’s cast of seniors want to finish their last performance memorably.
The livestreamed show will take place on Feb. 14 and 15 in the McAfee Center, with in-person tickets available at the end of January for $25 each. Performances almost always sell out.
This year’s BNB show includes 10 acts: all-girls, all-boys, freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, bhangra, tamasha, singing and classical dance.
BnB is organized by the Indian Cultural Awareness Club (ICAC) officers: Kalani is joined by seniors Shayaan Syed, Mahika Garlapati, Akash Gupta, Nila Venkataratnam, Ishir Gupta, Esha Verma and Arjun Bawa. The officers have tried to select new songs and dances to reflect the personalities of the senior class.
“We like to incorporate new songs every year, but I feel like there’s always a difference in ideologies of how everybody works together, especially the officers,” Syed said. “Every year, the vibe is different because it’s the way different grades show their different personalities.”
The charity event earns around $30,000 per year on average. This year, ICAC plans to donate proceeds to A Future for Every Child, a nonprofit that provides orphaned children in India with full scholarships covering education and living expenses, along with career placement assistance.
Apart from a lower number of seniors participating in comparison to past years, the group has not encountered any major problems. Most of the significant decisions, such as song and food choice, were made before the school year, allowing students to now put their efforts toward dance practices.
Kalani believes that early preparations and better organization will lead to an eventual better performance in mid-February. The group wants to put on their best performance possible, but ultimately, the main goal is to have fun in support of a worthy cause.
“It’s just something that we want to enjoy. Performing as seniors is something we’ve been looking at since we came into high school,” Syed said.
