My name is Farah, and I am an outgoing senior (and one of the captains) on Northwestern University Deeva Dance Troupe. First off, I would like to thank the Srujan executive board for inviting us to perform this past weekend. It was truly a pleasure to perform for such a large and enthusiastic audience. I would like to address one issue our team encountered during the performance, and hopefully offer some suggestions for the competition moving forward. As the audience may have noticed, our intro video did not play before we went on stage. I personally believe this technical mishap was unacceptable; it is the responsibility of the competition organizers to test all video and audio files before the show. While the absence of our intro video was unfortunate, and would have greatly helped solidify our theme (Deeva in Wonderland), the Srujan exec board was incredibly apologetic and made certain accommodations for us after the show. We are thankful for that. The issue I would like to address, however, was not this technical mishap, but rather how my team was treated minutes before going on stage. One of the board members was extremely rude to us backstage and 1) placed the blame on us for the video file not working (when we later showed him that it did work) and 2) ordered us, using profanity, to get on stage. As you can imagine, my team was extremely frustrated with our video not playing, and assumed the stage with an incredibly disheartened mindset after being yelled at. As a senior, this is not how I hoped to end my competitive dance experience and, above all, the last large performance of my college dancing career. After having a great experience with another Ohio competition two weekends ago (Midwest Dhamaka), I am shocked to see how an established competition treated its performers. In the future, I would advise established competitions to revisit their operational strategies, and remember that no matter what happens in the heat of the moment, no team should be treated the way we were treated by that particular board member. Again, thank you Ohio State for hosting us, and congratulations to the other participants on a great performance!
All the best,
Farah
2011-2012 Deeva Dance Troupe Co-Captain
(
fdahya@gmail.com)
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