Every semester, Kusum Ji always makes it her mission to provide students with fun and interactive activities to engage in the Hindi language and its culture. This semester was a little bit different due to the virtual environment of classes. Nonetheless, Kusum Ji made the impossible possible this semester with a virtual dance class with Rohini Thakkar from the Duke India Initiative.
Rohini Ji has her own dance studio here in Cary, North Carolina where she specializes in Bollywood dancing. She has even choreographed and performed for many famous celebrities in the Bollywood industry. Talking with her about her experiences was absolutely amazing. Our entire class was so impressed with Rohini Ji’s experience and humbleness throughout the entire class.
The goal of Hindi 101 and Hindi 203 is to help connect students to the local Indian community and Hindi speakers, enhance the understanding of art and culture, and improve the ability to use Hindi for creating bonds with culture and community. This semester Rohini Thakkar ji who is a Bollywood dancer and a native speaker of Hindi also spoke in Hindi during the classes, and created an authentic experience for our Hindi language students.
To prepare Hindi students for Rohini’s visit, she sent an introduction and answered a few questions.
Rohini Ji knew that our class would have people with varying backgrounds and dance experience. She created such original and creative choreography that anyone could pick up easily. As someone with dance experience in college, I had no idea what kind of choreography to expect. Rohini Ji’s choreography challenged me in such new ways. She taught us the steps in Hindi the entire time. We got to learn about numbers and directions and body parts and so much more in Hindi. Here is a glimpse of the Bollywood dance class.
Our entire class was up out of their seats dancing to the choreography prepared by Rohini Ji. Even Kusum Ji was participating and dancing like a professional throughout the class! The entire class got to engage with each other in such an interactive way, and we all were sending each other encouraging messages throughout the practice. We got to engage with the Hindi language in such a new way even in a virtual format. At the end of the class, we got to ask Rohini Ji questions about her life experience and her passion for dance.
Kusum Ji has this incredible ability to take the Hindi language and help us learn it in such a way where it feels fun to learn a new language. Our entire class had one comment about the Bollywood dance class. We ALL wanted the class to be longer. We are all so excited for the next Bollywood dance class and all of the unique ways to learn Hindi no matter the format or environment.
This workshop was sponsored and supported by Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Duke Service-learning and Duke India Initiative (DII).
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Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies