Richard Montgomery Club Natya: a Bollywood dance club that practices performances for the semi-annual Naach Ball, filled with rich culture and elaborate dancing. The Naach Ball is a celebration of South Asia, hosted by Clarksburg High School, where different school teams gather to perform group dances. RM’s team, Club Natya, is all-inclusive, and the main goal is to spread knowledge of the culture through dance.
“Club Natya is RM’s Bollywood dance club. We teach Bollywood dance to any interested students and we stress that you don’t need to have experience in dance or performance beforehand, because we will teach you. There are no tryouts as we encourage everyone to join and take interest in dance,” senior Ria Maheshwary said. “We usually meet once or twice a week in preparation for performances like the Naach Ball, pep rallies, or the SASA cultural fair.”
Recently, Club Natya performed at the Naach Ball with many other schools accompanying them. To attend, performing isn’t required, with many onlookers attending to watch, enjoy the music and cultural foods. “It was an awesome experience to see my friends, both at RM, and from other schools dance to popular songs,” senior Isabella Brennan said, Club Natya manager and a Naach attendee.
With many new members this year, practices were plentiful in order to stay up-to-par for the Naach Ball, with rehearsals being both in and out of school. “We do a lot of practices during lunch, and we also do outside of school practices at the president’s [of the club] house and the vice president’s [of the club] house,” sophomore Sonia Pinto said. Watching the team practice for the event with dedication was also fun to watch. “They all worked really hard, and I have videos of all the rehearsals, the bloopers, and everything,” Brennan said.
As for the performance, Club Natya danced to popular songs like Marjaani, by Sukwindher Singh and Sunidhi Chauhan. Although the Naach Ball isn’t a competition, some believe the RM team was one of the best out there. “We did really well, and if there was a final ranking, we definitely would have won,” senior Saif Salchak said.
However, for the future, some critiques linger amongst the members. A lack of true energy, although hidden well by a well-choreographed, practiced, and executed performance, was noticed by the club’s own dancers. The aforementioned sore points are already being worked on for the upcoming Naach.
It remains that the Club Natya is both a healthy atmosphere and a great experience. The members are all very welcoming and they all want to share the art of dance with each other. Many find it comforting to educate and share dance skills with one another. “It’s a really good feeling to have when I see club members actually enjoying dancing and the music, or even just being part of our community,” Maheshwary said.
