The University of Minnesota hosted its annual Bollywood fusion dance competition, Jazba, on Saturday, showcasing teams from colleges across the country.
Each competing team is eligible for a bid to the national dance championship and gains points toward the championship. Jazba is a nonprofit organization on the University’s campus that focuses on spreading South Asian culture through the arts, specifically dance.
Jazba was started in 2014 to give back to the women and people of South Asia. Jazba founder Anish Chandak and four other University students formed a partnership with Women In Need (WIN) to raise funds for their organization.
WIN is an organization that rehabilitates the lives of impoverished South Asian women who suffer or have suffered sexual assault, HIV/AIDs, Leprosy and poverty, according to Jazba’s website.
Aarya Bommidi, Jazba’s marketing and risk management director, said the competition is a way for people across the country to dance and put on a show, while also raising awareness and money for WIN.
Jazba also created specific initiatives to give WIN the spotlight beyond the competition. Through a recent initiative where the organization highlights one woman each month, Jazba created a personal relationship with the international nonprofit.
Woman of the Month highlights a specific woman’s story.
“Through that story, people are actually able to see the specific impact that WIN has,” Bommidi said.
The money raised from Jazba goes to the women from WIN in many areas, like medical expenses and to help combat their illness, Bommidi said.
Jazba Executive Director Sevaan Puri said in 2023 that WIN was able to open a rehabilitation center for the women involved in the nonprofit, through Jazba’s donation.
“That was a huge impact,” Puri said. “And that not only was able to expand their operations and be able to provide for more treatment of various diseases but also able to detect early-stage symptoms to avoid those later stage problems, has been a huge impact that recently we’ve been able to make.”
Each year’s competition draws Bollywood fusion college dance teams from all over the country, Puri said. This year’s teams came from Georgia, Florida, Texas, Indiana, California, Washington and Wisconsin.
Bollywood fusion combines Western pop culture and Bollywood dance, according to Puri. Each team works with DJs and creates sets and props that they bring to the competition to tell the story of their dance.
“If you ever come across Jazba on YouTube, you’ll see the production that goes into these dances,” Puri said. “Each dance also has a theme, in which they go and tell a story through dance.”
Bommidi said being a part of Jazba has been a great experience. Not just to have a dance competition, but to raise awareness for WIN has been great to see, he said.
“While all these other competitions do run a similar style of competition, Jazba runs with a unique purpose,” Bommidi said. “With Women in Need and having our 11-year partnership, I believe it’s something that’s unique just to Jazba.”
