As part of the yearly Gator Garba celebration, hundreds went to the Stephen C. O’Connell Center on Saturday for a night filled with dancing and traditional Indian music.
Students and Gainesville community members attended, as well as people from Tampa, Orlando and Tallahassee, said Payal Shah, a 19-year-old biology sophomore and the Indian Student Association secretary.
The Indian Student Association hosted the event in honor of Navratri, a Hindu celebration that lasts nine nights.
The majority of attendees were dressed in traditional Indian garments like chaniya cholis and kurtas. The styles of dance performed, known as garba and raas, gave glimpses of barefoot feet moving underneath flowing skirts as women skipped and hopped.
Heena Joshi, a 20-year-old biology junior, said the dances are taught to people starting from a young age.
“We grew up with the dances,” she said. “When we get here, they just come out.”
Starting at 8 p.m., people made their way down to the floor and began dancing at about 9:30 p.m. Shoes were abandoned in piles by the bleachers, and dancers young and old started spinning and swinging their arms.
Garba involves a series of repetitive motions performed while dancers move in circles around the floor. Some circles spun clockwise and others counter-clockwise, some were big and others small. Though the steps may have been simple, the performance as a whole looked intricate and complicated.
As the night wore on, the tempo of the music increased. The dancers sped up, performing jumping movements rather than sweeping steps.
Roshini Pudhucode, an 18-year-old biomedical engineering freshman, taught Zach Smythurst, an 18-year-old mechanical engineering freshman, and his friends.
“It seems pretty easy,” Smythurst said. “It’s a new experience, but it’s not overwhelming.”
Ten-piece band Taare Zameen Par provided the traditional tunes for the evening, playing nearly all night.
Attendees prepared for the raas by grabbing their dandiyas, foot-long sticks usually made of wood and decorated with paint, colored tape and fabric.
Shah said she was happy to have participated in this event.
“It was a lot of work, but it’s so worth it in the end,” she said.
