Garba

I went to Garba and it was okay. "Garba is an Indian form of dance that originated in the Gujarat region" (http://www.wikapedia.com/) "People dance around the center, bending sideways at every step, their arms making sweeping gestures, each movement ending in a clap.Modern garba is also heavily influenced by raas (Gujarātī: ડાંડીયા Ḍānḍīyā), a dance traditionally performed by men. The merger of these two dances has formed the high-energy dance that is seen today."When attending this festival women wear very colorful dresses which have mirrors, shells, jewels, glitter lining, and shells. The traditional attire is very colorful. Even for men, they have colors that are not as bright, but can range from red, grey, black, orange, dark purple, and so on. The outfits are long and go above the knees. they also come with pants at the bottom. For girls, their outfit may be a skirt and blose and then a thick layer of cloth goes over the blouse, and foled a certain way, and tucked into the skirt. Another outfit, for girls can be just the blouse (choli) and a skirt (ghara), along with a covering almost like a scarf (dupata). Jewlery is a also common. I see a lot of Americans wearing Indian jewlery such as bangles or (chudia/bangri) and (chanlo) or a bindi on their forehead.

In fact, Garba is not very new in the United States. More than 20 university have garba held. This Garba I went to was held at the gettings gym at University of Arizona by india club. It is very common for the youth to enjoy it more than adults. The dances are very fast paced, and the music is really loud. Parents and the elderly cannot move as fast and get very tired. They usually do rass because it is not as much movement as garba. It is vey tiring to go to Garba because you move very part of your body and your always running. Since there is so many people dancing, there is a lot heat and the whole time people are drenched in sweat! It is really good exercise. That is why a lot of young people, rather than older people enjoy doing garba.The food was good. It was only a dolor for some rice and seasoned chic pea entre. I can't really explain what it tastes like but it was tasty. India is known for it's spices. There wasn't a traditional Indian drink though. Food is usually served with water or soda. Sometimes there is a also Indian sweets offered as a traditional snack for the festival. It’s supposed to be something holy.

There were a lot of Caucasian people at this events since it was held at University of Arizona. I think that’s really nice of them to look into another culture and to bravely try to perform the dance. It’s nice they had fun and took interest. I also saw a couple Asians. It seems other races besides people from India are really into knew things. They were smiling the whole time and laughing. They began inventing their own moves too. Even some American girls borrowed Indian clothing from their friends and dressed in the traditional attire. Hopefully, I can try something knew just as they did, and go to a traditional ceremony they do in Japan, or learn a new dance from Greece.