"At Muqabala 2004, Lively Crowd and Enchanting Performances"

If a huge, lively audience, high-energy performances and solid hosting was what the Indian Student Association had in mind for the evening, then "Muqabala 2004" was a success.

Thirteen performances were featured in the event held on Saturday evening in the Center for the Arts Mainstage Theatre. Five of the acts were non-competitive and all of them worthy of praise.

One of the event's hosts, Mazin Kased, gave his summation before the winners were announced.

"Before anything, can you give it up for all the participants because they were freakin' great?" Kased screamed into the microphone, eliciting a roar of appreciation from the crowd.

The vociferous audience was an entity that could not be ignored during the evening. Spectators ranged from parents and grandparents dressed in traditional Indian garb to little brothers and sisters of performers clapping excitedly and shouting their siblings' names. But the group that could hardly be silenced was the classmates of the performers, some traveling from hundreds of miles to cheer their friends on.

Students from SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Albany, University of Michigan and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne joined UB for the 10th annual "Muqabala."

And they were not shy about announcing their presence.

They cheered while the performers from their schools were on stage, they cheered when ISA's president introduced their schools, they cheered when the hosts said their school's name; cheers erupted sporadically during the evening when the school's representatives initiated loud cheer-offs.

"It felt like the crowd enjoyed the show a lot," said Akruti Shastri, president of ISA. "The response from the crowd was amazing and it was a very tight competition."

The performers pulled out all the stops, giving the audience even more reason to cheer.

An all-girl group from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne delivered a well crafted a cappella performance. A lone singer from SUNY Albany gave a lively rendition of an Indian song about a teenager whose father told him that he could do and be anything he dreams. The performer, simply called Hassan, did slightly off beat dance moves to the lively music, giving his performance an innocent feel.

UB performers Tilova Rahman and Kalpesh Lad gave their rendition of "Kabhie Kabhie with a Twist." Lad kept the beat with the tabla, an Indian drum, while Rahman sang the mournful lyrics of a sad, Indian love song before moving on to a livelier song.

Lad and Rahman took third place in the song category with second going to Hassan from SUNY Albany. First place went to the immaculate performance from the ladies from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne.

While the song and musical acts were beautifully done, the true crowd pleasers were the dance performances.

The women, with hair falling in decorative braids, wearing flowing satin and sparkling traditional Indian dress and jangling jewelry, twisted, smiled and gyrated their way into the audience's favor. The men, with their decorated turbans and bare feet, jumped, spun and grinned as they did their traditional dances and sent shockwaves through the audience.

The University of Michigan took third place in the dance category. The women wore long, blue dupatas, traditional headdresses, and sparkly, gold saris and lehngas, traditional dresses, while the men performed in green turbans and sparkly sherwanis. The dancers moved their decorated performance sticks called dandias over their heads and under their arms as they made big, festive steps around the stage in their brilliantly choreographed routine.

The dancers from SUNY Binghamton took second place. The group consisted of 12 girls in white dupatas and red and white lehngas. They spun and tossed their dandias in unison ending their performance with some impressing lifts and spins that brought forth loud cheers from the audience.

But the loudest cheer of the night went up when the winner of the dance category was announced.

UB's "Jalwa," with their intricate dance moves, complex lifts and spins, impossible prop tricks and multiple costume changes, claimed the biggest victory of the night.

"It was the most amazing feeling ever because we put in so much time. Five to six weeks of four to five hours of practice, a lot of effort and screaming at each other," said Rydhima Shah, one of the "Jalwa" choreographers. "And those six minutes were amazing. When we heard our name it was just outstanding."

Jalwa's victory makes this the third year in a row that a UB dance group has been the champions of "Muqabala."

Last year, UB Bhangra Club was victorious and they pulled out all the stops at this year's performance, though they didn't place.

"It was a good night, there were some really great performances this year," said Rena Malik, president of UB Bhangra Club. "Jalwa, the other UB team, won first place, and they were phenomenal, completely on point, all their moves were in sync and they did like three costume changes."

The event's hosts, Sonia Kang, Mazin Kased, Sameera Sreepada and Mukul Tahiliani, kept the crowd entertained in between acts. Kased, who emerged as one of the audience's favorites, showed a funny skit in which he sent Dela Yador, vice president of the Student Association and Mohamed Kabba, the assistant music director, to "Desi 101" for lessons about Indian culture. The audience laughed as the two men were transformed into ultra-Indians, much more than Kased had wanted.

Shastri, who acknowledged the contributions of ISA's executive board, the Student Association, Sub Board I, and the Residence Hall Association, said the night was a complete success.

"The show was exactly how I had pictured it to be, it was a tough competition, the audience was impressed, there were no technical difficulties," she said. "The show ran smoothly and the audience was never bored, there was always something new. Since we had such diverse performances from different parts of India I feel that the audience now would be better able to understand what the Indian culture is about."