Hey guys! So this past Saturday Mayuri was invited to perform at VISA’s (Villanova Grad School’s Indian Students Association’s) Annual Culture Show! Here is a short video that sums up our day at Villanova:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32JoBDCBpOc&feature=youtu.be
Enjoy 🙂
So, this week I decided to write a blog post for the first time, as what I want to talk about is a little more serious. For those of you who don’t know, I am a part of a dance team called Mayuri. We are Bryn Mawr’s only South Asian fusion dance team and we perform at culture shows on campus, at other colleges in the area, and this year we are having a showcase during the spring semester. This is my third year on the team and I have to say that my Bryn Mawr experience would not be what it is had I not joined the team. My teammates are my best friends and my family. We do everything together, from practices and performances, to weekend brunches and late night library study sessions. This year we started with 9 girls on the team and unfortunately we only have 5 now. It’s never easy to see members leave, but it’s understandable as school always comes first and sometimes it gets hard to make time for anything else.
Mayuri Team Photo 2012-2013 (My freshman year)
Mayuri 2013-2014 (The end of my sophomore year)
Mayuri Team Photo 2014-2015 (This year/my junior year)
Last year we had the same issue, but a bit later into the year. We had started the year off with 12 dancers and ended up with only 7 girls by the second semester. Since then, we have felt that certain rumors and gossip have been spreading around campus about us and our team, which has been very hurtful and stressful. We all love what we do and we don’t want anyone to think that we pressure others to work harder than they are comfortable with or expect unreasonable hours from our members, because we don’t. Yes, we happen to spend a lot of time dancing and hanging out, but that’s only because we are such good friends and truly enjoy each other’s company! We do expect a certain level of commitment, however, but it’s nothing unreasonable and nothing that Mayuri’s dedicated members have not been able to give. When you really love to do something, spending hours doing it with the people that you love isn’t a chore. In fact, it becomes a stress reliever and a time to relax, have fun, and still have accomplished something by the end of the day. It has been confusing for me because I feel like we have not found a way to express this to our new members for two years in a row and I can’t help but think that it is something that we, as the executive board of Mayuri are doing wrong. I guess at this point in the year the only thing we can do is move on, work towards the performances we have, and discuss how we can improve our team to avoid these issues next year.
These past few weeks have been hectic as we have three performances coming up and have had to switch around some of our choreography to accommodate for the loss of three dancers. I have to say that even though we’ve had some rough moments this semester, I am incredibly excited for our performances.  On the 15th, we are performing at Dhwani, Villanova University’s Grad School’s Indian Students Association’s annual show and then the week after that we are performing at Villanova Undergrad’s Indian Students Association’s annual show on the 22nd, and at Haverford for the Bi-Co’s Fall Student Dance Concert on the 23rd. We have all worked so hard to make sure that we perform our absolute best and I could not be happier with how well we are doing; I am so proud of our work and how well we have been able to bounce back from our losses. Through it all we still have so much Mayuri Love!