The
excitement is palpable as four young dancers –
Milroy Quadros, Agnelo D’Souza, Seby Gauncar and Rahul Singh –
gear up to perform at the carnival in Cape Town, South Africa in
March before they touch down in UK for the Carnival in July there.
Part of the excitement comes from teaming up with dancers from each
of these countries and learning of each other’s diversities.
“Brouhaha
have done a good job building communities, not only in terms of
dance, but by
enabling us to
share actual culture and living traditions.
We have learnt
as much from these people (Cape Town and UK) as they have learnt from
us,
developing a
great rapport in just 10 days,” avers Agnelo, speaking on behalf of
the Goan team.
It
was this connect and ‘joie de vivre’ that was evident as they
danced together behind the lead float at the recent Carnival parade.
“We were in perfect sync,” they chorus.
“Each team
displayed their dance form,
from jazz to contemporary, ballroom to Latin, Hip Hop and even
African and Goan (kunbi) tribal
dances. We
taught them our Latin styles and they in turn taught us their steps
like hip hop. It was a great opportunity to learn different styles.
For instance,
in Goa,
the dances are slow, but in Africa they are very fast. Also,
their carnivals are more performance and costume-based while ours
focuses on floats. We then fused a lot of steps together to come up
with our unique dance sequence,” they explain of the group which
has six dancers from Cape Town and five from the UK. “Our
performance at the Cape Town floodlit
night carnival which will be held on March 12 will see an
improvisation of sorts, but we will basically follow the same steps
and retain the same costumes and perhaps add on some more
hand-puppets,” explains Agnelo.
The
opportunity to travel for dance and present themselves on an
international platform is the proverbial dream come true, one they
are grateful to GTDC and the Brouhaha programme for putting together.
Their recent
win at the Bombay Nationals as members of the Dance Illusions team
where they clinched gold and silver medals for waltz, rhumba, cha cha
cha, jive and samba stood them in good stead for the selections.
“I’m
excited at the opportunity to perform with international dancers,”
enthuses Raia-based Milroy, a BCom graduate and trained ballroom
dancer. His enthusiasm is shared by fellow ballroom dancer and
physics lecturer Agnelo,
an Ambora
resident, who is “very eager to see how dancers perform in Africa
and the
UK”. Being
on an international platform is a great high for young working lad
and ballroom/hip hop dancer Rahul from Goa Velha who is equally
excited to perform at both locations and for another Raia resident,
Seby –
a dancer by profession who has mastered the ballroom, hip hop and
B-boying
– it will be
an opening of many doors to a whole new world of dance.
In
fact, the ball has already started rolling for Seby who has been
invited to conduct a three-month workshop for kids in the UK after
the Cape Town event.
Building
up their stamina for the long dance ahead with a slew of exercises,
these young dancers are but a step away from the big number.
