SwaRaag 2014 glistens with GRAMMY Winner Mark Walker, Gold Medalist Amol Khanapurkar & Uber talent, brings them to the Boston Indian Community!

The SwaRaag Bollywood competition brought on plenty of glitz and glamour featuring Celebrity artists of International fame, five time GRAMMY winner Mark Walker (percussionist/composer) and Gold Medalist Amol Khanapurkar (vocalist/tabla player/composer/keyboardist).

SwaRaag’s soaring event on Oct 18^th, 2014 held at Ashland High brought by Founder and President Swathi Subramanian and their organizing team, showcased incredible talent in Music & Dance with contestants participating from as far as California, wowing the audience until the very end!

According to Ms. Subramanian, SwaRaag was created to bring about high level entertainment while providing a professionally engaging platform for artists in the performing arts where quality, grandeur and presentation are given due importance. This year we certainly felt that contestants took our mission into stride and pumped up their choreography and finesse right from the auditions. We try to bring novelty each year and our new competitive addition ‘Spot Choreography’ certainly proved to be a crowd energizer. The participation from all over the country, including Connecticut, Atlanta, New Jersey, California, validates the growing reach of SwaRaag as a desirable platform and we were happy to see a Californian contestant Anjali Pangal who made it to the finals take home the first place win for Solo Song Junior Category.

Anu Chitrapu writes on the event and contestants:

The SwaRaag event was very successful and adds another feather in the cap for the organizers led by Swathi Subramanian. The large number of participants validated Swathi’s belief that New England needed this kind of platform. As far as quality goes, the contestants definitely displayed a high level of talent and the PrimeTime Celebrity segment was definitely the unique differentiator that SwaRaag had compared to other events of similar kind in the Boston area.

PRIME TIME CELEBRITY PERFORMERS

The short prime time teaser by award winning singer Amol, of a well composed aalap around the very popular song paani daa (Vicky Donor) and its blend into hum tere bin – sun raha hai tu (Ashiqui 2) engulfed the audience raising their expectations of the special feature.

The first part of the PrimeTime celebrity segment was a fascinating, mind blowing Jugalbandi between 5-time Grammy winner Mark Walker on the drums and gold medalist Amol Khanapurkar on the tabla.  The audience literally sat on the edge of their seats as the two performers rocked the stage, taking everyone on a journey into the world of percussion and culminating with them roaring for more. This is was the first time that an Indian event has showcased a Grammy winner, and also the first time for Grammy winner Walker to be presenting Bollywood for an organization.

The renaissance man Amol Khanapurkar was as comfortable singing as he was on the tabla. A second part of the PrimeTime featured a live band with Christy Mathew and his butter fingers on the keyboard, Manish Kurup (guitar), Hiral (octapad) & Mark Walker (drums) and vocalists Amol Khanapurkar, Nalini Krishnan, Raghu Saranathan & Sankar Gangaikondan presenting fresh resonating Bollywood World Fusion hits such as  ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’, ‘Vaseegara’, ‘Wada Raha’, ‘Eh Mere Humsafar’, ‘Kaho Na Kaho’,  a mood that escalated with the audience singing along adding the finest impact to the overall ambience in the auditorium. Nalini Krishnan also captured all with an Adele western rendition and the overall eclectic mix of songs performed by the group was very well received by the audience.

The song category included Solo Song (3 age divisions), whereas the Dance categories included Solo Dance, Duo Dance (Jr & Sr), Spot Choreography, Group Dance (Jr & Sr).

SOLO SONG Age 9 - 16

Medha Morparia sang chandan sa badan and never slipped in pitch even once and was a strong contestant but this age group was perhaps the most competitive with all the children giving excellent performances.  Juhi Lalwani sang mere dolna which was a good choice for her voice.  Anjani Pangal, had come all the way from California to participate. The long trip was not in vain as her flawless rendition of jiya re jiya won her the well deserved 1st place. Anjani has great potential and we look forward to watching her grow as a singer.  Shreya Madhu’s biggest plus point was her confidence. She missed starting at the right place and did not hesitate to request the music to be started again.  It was a good move on her part as she then delivered a great performance with maar daala and won 2nd place.  Diya Nair brought a new flavor to the song competition with her Malayalam song laali laali.  Akila Narayanan who connected very well with the audience. She looked around the full span of the auditorium while she sang the tamil song allegra allegra.

SOLO SONG Age 17 - 32

Manasa Majeti showed very good control, great sense of pitch and gave an outstanding performance, which won her the 1st place. Manasa was completely into her singing, one could see she was enjoying the song.  Shalini Kashyap had a good classical touch to her voice as she sang Der na ho jaye kahin der na ho jaye. Perhaps her classical training was what helped her win the 2nd place.  Asawari Gundawar sang in her true, strong voice. She managed to keep the low notes also in pitch.

SOLO SONG Age 33&Up

Shailesh Salgar won the 1st place with “mein pal  do pal…” Shailesh was a clear winner with perfect pitch and good expression.  Sunil Nambiar picked the very popular song “tere mere beech mein” from Ek Duje Ke Liye and won 2nd place.  Rajiv Gangurde sang mere naina saawan bhado.  BR Devi won over the audience when she said all she wanted to do was sing. 

SOLO DANCE

Sakeena Kazmi was probably the simplest dressed of all in a simple salwar kameez which definitely added elegance to her dance.  Shivani Sudan is a graceful dancer and had good energy on stage.  Aditi Sukhathankar displayed good energy on stage and kept smiling throughout. While everyone danced to a medley of songs, Aditi picked a single song and stuck to it.  Sheetal Kelkar was bold enough to have a dress change in the short time she had for the dance. She very successfully did so and ended her dance on a dramatic note with a sword and won the 2nd place.  Shravani Balaji had the best mix of moves and also kept the audience’s attention with her high energy levels and as expected won the 1st place.

DUO DANCE: Juniors

1st place was won by Khushi & Medha Morparia. 2nd place was won by Anoosha Barau & Arya Anand. While Nimisha Thakkar & Arya Mohanty did not win, this section was a close match with all 3 groups performing well.

DUO DANCE: Seniors

Shreya Vijay & Neha Vinod: The duo senior competition got off to a dynamic start with this duo’s high energy dance.  Namita Dodwadkar & Nandish Desai: It was the excellent co-ordination between the two dancers that helped them win the 2nd place. Both dancers looked at each other and at the audience equally.  Priya Asthanan & Priya Anand: This duo brought a new angle to the competition with a mix in languages of songs selected.

Shreya & Chitra Nidadavallu: These two sisters from Connecticut, performed to a medley.  Neha Ghalsasi & Namita Dodwadkar : This duo won the 1st place because of their great performance along several dimensions – energy, variety of moves and good choice of music.

Group Dance : Juniors

This section was introduced by Soumya Rajaram and Meena Subramanium; both of them dressed and spoke in the very elegant style that is typical of Kalakshetra students!  AANGIKAM DANCE Academy | Choreographer Jasmine Shah: Indiawala by this group was very popular with the audience cheering as the dance ended with the Indian flag. Lights added an exciting touch.  CHIDAMBARAM NRITYAKALA Academy | Choreographer - Neha Parikh: Jai Maharashtra by this group certainly appealed to all, especially the Marathi speaking part of the audience. The bribe taking angry policeman who turned into a fun dancer was a creative touch that was very successful with the audience.

Group Dance : Seniors

TRISHA DANCE | Choreographer - Shital Botadra: This dance, Madhuri Medley, picked very good music and moves were coordinated well with the music.  NORWOOD DIVAS | Choreographer - Jane Samuel: This dance called Contemporary Mix, was truly a great mix of tunes with a sprinkle of South Indian languages.  JAI HO DANCE Group | Choreographer -Jaikishan:  As far as sheer talent goes his group, performing the Jai Ho Fusion Mix was the best with a lot of exciting props, which kept the audience engaged.  The good mix of moves and props won them the 1^st place.  AANGIKAM DANCE Academy | Choreographer - Jasmine Shah: The dance Raamleela by this group won the 3^rd place. The dance was well choreographed and executed.  CHIDAMBARAM NRITYAKALA Academy |  Choreographer - Neha Parikh: Exotic India was the name of the dance performed by this group and true to its name, the dance showed various aspects of India that displayed the color and vibrancy everyone associates with India. While this group won the 2^nd Place, I am sure it was a pretty close second.

SPOT CHOREOGRAPHY

This was a new section added this year. Judging by how popular this was, the organizers should definitely keep this segment in the coming years.  Neha Ghalsasi danced to crazy kiya re and made it to the final 3.  Shikha Bajpai had the best mix of moves, which not only took her to the finals but also got her the first place.  Nagaraju Cemitathollu was the highest energy dancer which was took him to second place.  Pallavi Gupta, also exhibited good energy with her spot choreography.  Sakeena Kazmi was off to a good start with a great mix of moves and energy.

NON-COMPETITIVE

Apart from the competitive sections, there were short performances by 2013 winners, Shyla Mudur who sang na janne kyo, and Harini Shanmughan who sang kangal kanvad ellam. New England’s emerging star, Nalini Krishnan, completely captured the audience with her Maiyya Mayya. Even though Nalini is originally from the West Coast, because of her association with Berklee School of Music, we New Englanders can and are claiming her as our own nightingale! She is the pride, joy and backbone of Indian music in New England.

Technology was leveraged well to provide a superior experience to the audience. A new feature was the use of QR codes on all tickets adding a professional touch to the program.

The program went well past 11pm but not surprisingly, hardly anyone left the auditorium! The quality of the show was certainly what was responsible for keeping everyone glued to their seats.  We certainly look forward to this event next year.

The highly efficient and rocking SwaRaag Team that brought this event to fruition:

Kalaimangai Anbalagan | Uma Sankar | Hiral Parikh | Rekha Palriwala | Anandini Sekhar | Asha Manish | Mahesh Palriwala | Shikha Bajpai | Abhijit Kanade | Jai Kishan | Manjiri Danke | Jaya Kulkarni | Shobha Shastry | Swetha Subramanian | Rens Methratta | Vaibhav Dabade  & Swathi Subramanian (also the Founder, President, Program Host of SwaRaag Performing Arts, Inc.) 

Presiding over the SwaRaag Panel were honorable Judges:

Final Dance Judges:  Arsh Mehrotra | Aparna Sindhoor | Jeyanthi Ghatraju

Final Song Judges:   Tirthankara Das | Ramchandra Joshi | Janani Swamy

Audition Dance Judges:  Kalaimangai Anbalagan | Swathi Subramanian

Audition Song Judges: Sudha Lakshmi Rao | Uma Sankar | Hiral Parikh

SOLO DANCE

1^st Place:   Shrvani Balaji
2^nd Place:  Sheetal Kelkar

DUO DANCE JUNIORS

1^st Place:   Khushi & Medha Morparia
2^nd Place:  Anoosha Barau & Arya Anand

DUO DANCE SENIORS

1^st Place:   Neha Ghalsasi & Namita Dodwadkar
2^nd Place:  Namita Dodwadkar & Nandish Desai

SPOT CHOREOGRAPHY

1^st Place:   Shikha Bajpai
2^nd Place:  Nagaraju Cemitathollu

SOLO SONG Age 9 - 16

1^st Place:     Anjani Pangal
2^nd Place:   Shreya Madhu

SOLO SONG Age 17 – 32

1^st Place:    Manasa Majeti
2^nd Place:  Shalini Kashyap

SOLO SONG Age 33&Up

1^st Place:   Shailesh Salgar
2^nd Place:  Sunil Nambiar

GROUP DANCE SENIOR Winning Teams

1^st Place:   Jai Ho Fusion Mix | Choreographer - Jaikishan | Jai Ho Dance School

Group Members: Meghna Nair, Tishya Marwah, Meghana Paras, Neha Paras, Krapakshi Sharma, Sakshi Gera, Mansi Gera, Pooja Hingorany, Sanjana Basu, Infanta Antony, Sreya Sankar, Ahana Nimmagadda, Jaikishan, Nagaraju Cemitathalu, Pradeep Virags 

2^nd Place:  Exotic India | Choreographer - Neha Parikh | Chidambaram Nrityakala Academy

Group Members: Preetika Kulkarni, Ananya Venkatesan, Suma Cherkadi, Maansi Desai, Meera Kurup, Sumedha Rao, Nandita Kasireddy, Sahajaa Surpaneni

3^rd Place:  Raamleela | Choreographer - Jasmine Shah | Aangikam Dance Academy

Vishruti Shah, Aashna Shah, Hernisha Radia, Nikhaar Shah, Priya Kumari, Nikita Patel, Kajaal Gandhi, Komal Gandhi, Maya Joshi, Shivani Patel, Shikha Pandey, Yamini Kumar, Puja Patel, Anika Sriram, Roshani Sahoo, Nilam Mistry

GROUP DANCE JUNIOR Winning Teams

1^st Place:   Indiawale | Choreographer - Jasmine Shah | Aangikam Dance Academy

Juhi Lalwani, Forum Patel, Isha Patel, Ami Patel, Devanshi Shah, Shreya Sen, Payal Gandhi, Pooja Patel, Tina Tailor, Bhavya Patel, Aadhya Putter, Meera Kumar, Milani Behra, Eshna Master

2^nd Place: Jai Maharashtra | Choreographer - Neha Parikh | Chidambaram Nritya Kala Academy

Aarohi Darisi, Arya Gor, Shreya Nagri, Spoorthi Chetan, Yuvika Akkineni, Priya Gavini, Damini Singh, Ruchitha Rishi, Krtin Akkineni 

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