“Samsara,” the 16th annual South Asian cultural show, filled Crowell Concert Hall last Saturday with poetry, dance, and music. This year’s show featured several compelling spoken word pieces, and dance pieces that exploded with infectious energy.
The show began with ten performers singing the Bangladeshi, Indian, Nepali, Pakistani and Sri Lankan national anthems, representing the South Asian communities at the University.
Several self-choreographed dance routines mixed high-energy elements of American hip-hop and South Asian pop dance. “Mast Masala,” one of the strongest dance pieces of the evening, constructed appealingly unclear boundaries between the cultural traditions that influenced it. Two of the four freshmen who performed in it doubled as the choreographers. Throughout the performance, the four dancers filled the stage and exuded positive energy, grinning and giving themselves over to the highly rhythmic, incredibly playful choreography.
One of the most compelling performances was a reading by Ayesha Hoda ’08, who read a letter to her mother in the audience. In her letter, Hoda spoke of how her mother was able to turn pain into “something beautiful and optimistic” and “give so much of [her]self.” Because of her ability to communicate directly to her mother, Hoda’s performance was especially captivating. Like many of the other performances throughout the night, Hoda was particularly aware of the audience and was invested in keeping them involved.
Devaka Gunawardena ’09 presented a spoken word piece that explored issues of having a foreign cultural identity. Inspired by a trip to Sri Lanka, he illuminated the process toward an internal acceptance of his sister as integral to his sense of community. Gunawardena described the manner in which his Cuban, Sri Lankan and American identity is often perceived as a “delightful snack mix.” He said that the perception of a singular identity “implies cohesion for me that doesn’t exist.”
Gunawardena’s entire piece grappled with growing up in a foreign country (“I was too brown,” he said of himself at one point) and wanting to have an “authentic experience” during his time in Sri Lanka. However, the strength in Gunawardena’s poem came from his last line. In the midst of exploring both his desire for solitude and relationship to his family, and especially his sister, he addressed the audience fiercely, hardening his voice as if to stop his foot abruptly, and proclaiming, “I am my sister’s brother.”
Later, Aaliya Zaveri ’09 performed a fascinating spoken word piece that wound its way through several shorter poems, each exploring the construction of her cultural identity through multiple sources. Zaveri spoke of the difficult process of creating a transnational identity. This idea gained particular force in the third of her shorter poems, entitled “Water,” in which she is told by her mother that she “must be like water.” To do this, Zaveri continued, requires one to be “diffuse, uncoil [and] be transparent.”
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