The University of Minnesota Indian Student Association’s (ISA) fall show celebrates South Asian culture while bringing the University’s students and greater campus community together.
This year’s show, Mastani, will feature performances from South Asian dance, singing and cultural groups, as well as free food. The show will be held on Nov. 9, from 5:30-9 p.m. at Northrop Auditorium.
According to co-presidents Shaliny Jadhav and Anlin Thachil, the show’s name changes each year and is chosen based on input from the board members who plan the show and club meetings as well as those performing in the show.
“This year, ours is Mastani, which just means having fun and joyfulness,” Jadhav said. “That’s kind of the theme that we kind of want to go for this year.”
As co-presidents, Jadhav and Thachil both oversee the overall coordination of the show by making sure the board members are on task to put together the show and communicate with the performing groups.
This year’s show will feature more performances from other South Asian student organizations, including South Asian groups like Bharat and Disha, who will be performing their own dances.
Mastani is also set to be a larger performance than the fall 2023 performance. Mastani will involve fourteen acts, four more than last year’s performance, according to event coordinators Varun Nagapurkar and Tharun Inturi.
There will also be performances from dance groups on campus, the greater community, a musical performance from Fitoor, the University’s South Asian acapella team and several solo performances, said Thachil.
“We’re very excited because our culture is so expansive and vast,” Thachil said. “It’s really nice to see all these different types of South Asian groups performing too.”
This year also saw new solo and group student performers who auditioned outside of the typical school organizations, according to Nagapurkar and Inturi.
“This year we saw a lot of students wanting to do their own thing,” said Nagapurkar. “Whether it was their senior year or freshman or sophomore year, they saw the fall show opportunity and wanted to do either a solo act or make a group with their friends and dance. I think we saw a lot more eagerness from the students to want to perform.”
Though this year’s performance will feature more acts than usual, Inturi said this year will especially include more singers compared to previous years.
“In the past, our show has gravitated more towards dance, just because there’s so many Desi dance groups here on campus but this year we have a lot of singers,” Inturi said.
Tharun said the show will include two solo singers, an acapella group and a few more vocal performances among the show’s acts.
In addition to the student acts, Nagapurkar said the ISA board will also be performing a dance in the show.
“It’s really cool to expose some of our friends and just the greater University of Minnesota community to our culture,” Inturi said. “Indian people are very proud of their culture. Mastani is a very fitting word.”
The event will have free admission and will have free food catered by Bloomington-based restaurant Aroma Indian Cuisine.
Correction: A previous version of this article misattributed the last quote to Nagapurkar. It was said by Inturi. Other edits made for clarity.
