Weeks of planning-and ten years of history-came to fruition this past weekend as the South Asian Association (SAA) celebrated the 10th anniversary of Ghungroo, an annual show of South Asian and American culture.

Dancing, singing, poetry reading and humorous skits blended the traditional South Asian experience with the modern South Asian-American experience in four sold-out shows at the Agassiz Theatre from Thursday to Saturday night.

SAA co-president Uttam K. Tambar '00 describes Ghungroo as a show that bridges gaps between club members as well as between members of the larger College community.

"It's the one single event [of the SAA] that brings members together," he says. "Ghungroo is priceless in terms of what it means to our organization. It's the main way to represent our community. The audience can get to know us through the show and the acts."

"It's amazing how many people come and take something away from it," he adds.

Cast member Treeny Ahmed '01 says Ghungroo aims to integrate traditional and modern aspects of South Asian culture.

"A lot of acts did have that fusion," she says. "It was an eye-opener to show [people] what traditional acts are like, and that's why Ghungroo is so different from other cultural shows on campus." Ten Years of Change

While Gunghroo-which gets its name from the bells worn around the dancers' ankles-has been fusing the modern and the traditional for the last 10 years, Tambar says this year's show presented the most diverse selection of acts in Ghungroo history.

"In terms of choosing acts, the directors really did a great job," says Tambar, who performed in the show's interpretive dance. "If we call ourselves a South Asian show, we should try to represent all of South Asian culture, and the directors did that."

This year's acts ranged from traditional "Bharata Natyam" dancing to the performance of a song from the Hindi movie "Dil Se," which featured a mixture of modern and semi-classical music.

Ashwin Vasan '99, who has co-directed the last two Ghungroo productions, says the show has gradually evolved to a point where it can better represent a wider variety of South Asian regions, from past to present time.

"A lot of cultural shows on [other] college campuses about South Asia...are very specific," Vasan says. "We wanted to be more inclusive, with modern acts that a lot of people can identify with, and we also wanted the more traditional aspect."

"We want to ensure that the audience and the cast experience is broad-ranged,” he adds.

To that end, the show's directors say Ghungroo was modified this year in order to pack as much as possible into just a few hours. Changes included eliminating most voice-over narration between acts. Instead, descriptions of the acts were included in the printed program.

Vasan says the written descriptions better conveyed contextual details about the songs and dances, which the show's organizers feel are important for the audience to know.

And by eliminating the inter-act narration, Tambar says the show's producers were able to introduce new elements to keep the audience entertained. While performers set up for upcoming acts behind the thick red curtain of the Agassiz stage or quietly prepared in the wings, cast members-and the occasional member of the tech crew-alternately performed humorous skits and read poetry.