If there is any one on campus who truly embodies her passion, it is junior Mrittika Bhaumik. Through her classes and extracurriculars Mrittika dedicates herself to her diverse passions: while double majoring in chemical and biomedical engineering, Mrittika takes guitar lessons from the Music Department and participates in one of CMU’s most popular dance troupes, Tanah.
Because of her dedication to dance, Mrittika rose, after one year, to the status of Tanah choreographer. Along with two partners, Mrittika has fueled Tanah’s transition from a classical contemporary Indian dance troupe to an upbeat, fusion-style powerhouse of dance. This year the all-girl dance troupe has incorporated dance styles from around the world, some possibly inspired by CMU. That’s right, this year the girls took a seemingly impossible dance theme, robots, and converted it into an Indian-style dance routine, complete with Bhangra and hip-hop moves to some of this season’s most happening songs.
Tanah brought a new type of energy to their dance, and it shows. Learn the attitude these girls these girls learned to possess to bring their dance troupe to a whole new level on the competitive platform, defying their past successes and failures and truly personifying their motto for the first time. Tanah: embody your passion.
HC: Why did you first decide to join Tanah?
Mrittika: I joined Tanah because I danced Indian classical, specifically Bharatanatyam, for eight or nine years before college. Before coming to CMU I watched every video of Tanah and other competitive fusion troupes and I knew if I were on the team it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I tried out for the troupe my sophomore year and it has been the most gratifying experience ever!
HC: It seems like Tanah’s chorographical style has changed a lot since you’ve been on board as a choreographer. Did you have a vision for Tanah when you started designing dance routines?
Mrittika: Before I explain our vision, I’ll explain the competition scene really quickly: so there are Indian fusion troupes across the country from pretty much every university. They can be an all-girls troupe, all-boys, or co-ed. Each troupe has to have their own theme or story line and encompass various styles while maintaining a ton of energy and keeping the audience engaged.
That’s where our vision started. This was our time to really pay attention to every little detail and incorporate our theme into the various styles of dance that we needed to have for competition.
That did require us to explore a lot of other styles that we may have not had in the past and sometimes get out of our comfort zones in order to master types of dance we have not been trained in.
HC: So what changed in the 2010-2011 Tanah season after you adopted new dance styles?
Mrittika: I think the biggest change we sought for was really focusing on our theme and adapting to the feedback we got. For example, after our first competition we realized that we needed to add more hype songs that really brought the audience alive. Within two weeks we learned over three minutes of new choreo in different parts of our piece. We also extended the piece to an entire nine minutes and somehow added in another stunt or two.
So I’d say by training girls to have the ability to adopt different dance styles, we have also been able to implement drastic changes after receiving feedback and thus ultimately having a successful, fun piece in the end. It was a ton of work but the outcome was so much better than anything we have ever done all thanks to enthusiasm and passion that the dancers have.
HC: You’re such hard workers! But now that the semester is winding down, what’s your outlook for Tanah 2011-2012? Any ideas crazier than creating robots that can pull off classical Indian dance moves?
Mrittika: The problem with being a competitive troupe is that we’re going against teams that are either co-ed or all-boys. Therefore as girls, it’s hard to bring that kind of energy and craziness to a piece sometimes. I think we really want to expand our troupe to any one who just has the passion for dance, no matter what ethnicity or dance background. I think our goal is to have dancers who have a passion to dance and be comfortable in the spotlight.
We have come so far this past year, I can only see us getting better from here on out. Being on Tanah has been a tremendous experience, and to see it transform into what it is now especially after our last performance… I think we have the ability to really bring it next year in terms of competitions.
HC: Anything you’d like to add?
Mrittika: I love being on the troupe. It is so amazing to be involved in something that not many people get to be a part of in college. Being able to go to these competitions, you get to meet so many people from other teams and see the creativity that other troupes bring while being able to express your own. It’s truly a really cool experience.