Kavya Gandra: Traditions
Name: Kavya Gandra
Year: Junior
Major: International Studies
Hometown: Troy, Michigan
Dance History: Kathak, Bhangra, Raas
“Who am I without dancing?” For Kavya Gandra, dance is more than just a way to connect to her culture; it is very much her identity. Kavya is a member of both IU HoosierRaas as a dancer and IU HooSher Bhangra as a board member, but she was not always so in tune with Indian culture. She started dancing kathak at a young age, but was not able to continue with it for various reasons. Coming from an area with a very high Indian population, she felt like she did not want to associate with them and get integrated into Indian culture. In high school, though, she began dancing bhangra and ended up loving it so much, she was captain by her senior year. She knew she wanted to continue dancing in college because dance became “so central to who [she] was as a person”. Through these years of dance, Kavya definitely feels that she has formed a bicultural identity as an Indian-American. Being around all of these Indian people has helped open her eyes to different cultural problems that people from all cultures are experiencing, and she is very thankful for that. Kavya also feels that this generation of Indian Americans feels that dance and being in touch with Indian culture is much more important than for people even from India. For her, in particular, it “helps ‘[her] feel more Indian and lets [her] meet more Indian kids who have the same ambiguous identity”. It has shown her how something like dance can help unite such different people together for a common cause. The dance circuits themselves have really opened Kavya’s eyes to the adaptability of cultures. In both the bhangra and raas circuit, she says that the traditionality of the dance form carries over but that is about it. The songs have “so many bass drops and random American songs” and the dance itself is adapted to give it a more westernized flare. As a future captain of HoosierRaas, Kavya cautions that it should not deviate too far from the traditional roots from which the circuit arose. “We are dancing to raas/garba because we are trying to be in touch with our roots, and we need to put more of [our] roots into it and not be as modified.” With this mindset , Kavya feels extremely responsible to keep Indian dance alive and to pass down Indian traditions. She says even though she is not fully Indian, she has never felt more in touch with her roots than through dance. Kavya strongly believes “it is the responsibility of everyone to pass down their roots/traditions."