Amidst the wide array of clubs at Camas High School, one stands out for being particularly creative, well-loved, and filled with passion. The members of Aaja Nachle Club choreograph and perform beautiful dances to Bollywood style music. “Aaja Nachle” means “Come, let us dance” in Hindi and is the title of a popular Hindi-language dance film released in 2007.
CHS Seniors Hrithi Reshi Sivalinki and Shalaka Deshpande are the co-presidents and founders of Aaja Nachle.
Photo credit: Hrithi Reshi Sivalinki
“The beginning of sophomore year, me, Shalaka, Aleen [Dhillon], and Priyanka [Sachdeva] all worked together and got the club started. We just advertised it throughout the school and then performed at the talent show.” Sivalinki said.
Sivalinki says the club leaders do all the choreography for the dances themselves.
“My favorite part is doing the choreography and teaching it to everybody. First, all four of us decide on the theme of the year- are we going to do mellow, etc, what language we’re going to do- then me and Shalaka edit the songs together and we each pick a song and choreograph it. We look at some dance covers, listen to the music, watch the music videos, and then make our own choreography. I do Telugu songs, and Shalaka does Hindi songs,” Sivalinki said.
Seniors Sabeen Mirza and Margo Westover have been part of Aaja Nachle since it started.
“I thought it was cool that there was some kind of cultural representation in our school- I’ve been looking for that for a while but was too scared to start it myself so it was nice to see that other people were doing it,” Mirza said. “Learning the dances in general is really valuable- just the things that we learn how to do are really common in Bollywood and I think it’s important to learn things like that”.
“I wish that American culture had more of the dances in their movies like Indian movies do because they’re so much fun to learn. I’ve really enjoyed being in the club and dancing with everyone,” Westover said.
Coach Les Albert is the advisor for the club, and he provides them with access to the gym and his speaker. Other than that, he has limited involvement with the club, but says he is proud of the impact they make at CHS.
“The reason I’m their advisor is because they need access to the gym, and they use my speaker. They take care of all the communication, they’ll let me know if they need anything and I’ll try to help them out. They pretty much run it on their own. It’s a great cultural thing- they get to express themselves and share.
