Vibha Vibe February 28th, 2009

Vibha Milwaukee held it's first major fundraising event since inception – Vibha Vibe on Feb 28th 2009 at the Centennial hall of the Milwaukee Public Library in downtown Milwaukee.

The event was billed as a multi-cultural dance and music extravaganza. We were able to get performers representing a fair smattering of diverse dance and music traditions from around the world.

The event started off with a sumptous Indian dinner featuring traditional North Indian and South Indian delicacies and dessert courtesy Mayura Restaurant, Milwaukee.

The event was em-ceed by Vibha volunteers Meenal Atre and Vishal Rohilla, who did a fabulous job holding the event together and the audience on their toes, raring for more.

The first performance was a Punjabi folk dance from India called “Bhangra” characterized by lively music and energetic dancing by a young all girl team from Oak Creek, WI, who called themselves “Milwaukee di Kuriyan”, punjabi for “Pretty women from Milwaukee”.

This was followed a totally different ut equally professional dance performance. This time it was the familiar latin american traditions of Cha-Cha, Rumba, Mambo and Bolero, all tightly choreographed into an exciting performance executed flawlessly by the ravishing duo, Kristin and Franco, from the Fred Astaire North Shore Academy. Both of them are dance teachers at this popular dance franchise on Milwaukee's east side and have won accolades regionally for their dancing, including finishing third among competitors from all over Wisconsin in the 30th Annual Trophy ball. They certainly sent the audience into raptures with their smooth and elegant pair dancing showcasing a range of latino dance traditions.

From there, the dance odyssey waltzed on to the middle east, with the next performance coming from Shaia Farid and Troupe. Shaia runs milwaukeebellydance.com, a belly dancing school in Milwaukee and enthralled us with the rest of her troupe with a moderately paced arabic-flamenco fusion dancing. They were a visual treat totally, with the lilting music, colorful costumes and the skillful dancers, lapped up equally enthusiastically by a ravenous audience.

Next, the journey zoomed right back to the subcontinent with a bollywood dance, inspired by dancing in Indian movies by the extremely talented Ms. Chandini Sridharan, who did a fabulous job treating the audience to an eclectic melange of popular numbers from recent Indian movies.

After this, we went further south through Asia on our journey, stopping at the tiny country of Laos to savor their traditional music instruments and dancing presented by the Hmong-American Friendship Association. The Hmong people have been an essential part of the Milwaukee area diaspora, post Vietnam war, with Wisconsin hosting significant Hmong communities and it was great to get a peek of their eclectic cultural heritage with the exotic dancing by little kids from the association, all brightly attired and fabulously talented – another surefire treat to the eye.

The next performance was a collection of “fusion” dancing numbers performed by students from the Indian Grad Student Association at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Particularly notable was Arul Sundaramoorthy who did some Michael Jackson covers, replete with perfect break dance moves and an energetic group fusion dance.

The odssey suddenly took a flight to ancient Greece for the next event, performed by Vibha Volunteers – Srikanth Pilla, Karthik Palaniappan and Balaji P R. This was a mime act of a funny situation involving fishermen and their daily lives, and showcasing some light hearted situations featuring the two fishermen fight for a woman's attention et al, accompanied only by background music and some fantastic emoting and acting by the three volunteers who seemed to really infuse life into the situation they were enacting and literally set the stage on fire, while they were on it, and of course, the audience caught on and enjoyed it all throughly.

Next, we crossed back to Asia briefly, to Egypt.with the Tamarind Tribal Belly Dance Company, a professional belly dance troupe out of Milwaukee, who introduced us to the nuances of the ancient art-form of egyptian belly dancing – colorful, sensuous and very graceful, this was another visual treat, that colored the evening's mood even vividly.

Just as we thought the dance odyssey was close to over, and we'd seen by now quite a few different art forms, our ears were going to be pampered next, with a solo instrumental piece by Archit Bhaskaran. All of 12 years, little Archit, who plays with the Milwaukee youth symphony and is a John Downwy Fellow, showed some amazing mastery over the piano playing a wide range of things, ranging from Indian classical carnatic notes, through Indian film music and Beethoven's “fur elise” all choreographed into a single performance, he put together himself. It was great to hear this budding musician and composer and get a taste for his wizardry.

Our next performance, was the much awaited Indian classical dance (Bharatanatyam) recital by Kripa Bhaskaran and her students from the Natyarpana Dance Academy in Brookfield, WI. Kripa is a well known name in Milwaukee cultural circles and her dance schools trains almost 300 students at any given point in time, in the ancient classical Indian dance form – Bharatanatyam. Kripa and her two students put together a fantastic performance, that showcased the artform, its hindu devotional roots, the wide range of emotions gracefully portrayed, very vivdly. One of her youngest students also gave us a brief solo performance, exposing us to more talent, Kripa's chiseling of it, and more nuances from the art form, all of which left a classic touch to the evening by now.

The evening ended on a high note with an energetic Bhangra performance by two different boy/girl Bhangra troupes coming together for a closing sequence of highly peppy and energetic numbers that sure left the crowd energized and wide awake, a fitting finale to a great evening of international dance and music, all for a great cause – Vibha.