UGA’s Georgia Saazish Placed 3rd at Legends

Premier Bollywood dance fusion team, Georgia Saazish, attended Legends competition in Charlotte, North Carolina this past weekend in which they placed 3rd out of nine teams. Georgia Saazish was created in 2017, in which they branched off from the long-standing team UGA Asura to create an all-male Bollywood fusion dance team. This past year, Saazish branched out to be a co-ed team in which they accepted 4 new female dancers. Saazish has attended 5 total competitions in which they placed high enough to be considered and accepted as a performing team at Legends. Take a look at their high-energy performance here!

THE COMPETITION

The DDN (Desi Dance Network) Legends competition features the best of the best. The top DDN teams from around the nation beat out their competitors to make it to this final competition. So let’s meet the eight other teams that GA Saazish f  was aced this weekend. Up first is UTD Laksh, the premier co-ed Bollywood dance team at the University of Texas at Dallas. The organization was formed just a short two years ago after merging UTD Chalak and UTD Sharara, but they’ve been making headlines since its founding. Next is another Texas team, UT Saaya, who placed second at Legends. Saaya was first established in 2008, making it one of the first dance teams at UT! Lastly, our final team from Texas, Texas Talaash. This dance team was established recently in 2019 as a non-profit dance organization at the University of Texas, Austin. Next, we have SLU Shakti from Saint Louis, Missouri, and Michigan Manzat from the University of Michigan. Then we have the first-place winners of Legends 2023, OSU Origins, from Ohio State University. Then, we have a team based in North Carolina itself, UNC Chalkaa. Lastly, we have another Georgia team from a rival school, Georgia Tech – the all-male team best known as GT Qurbani.

SAAZISH SETLIST

GA Saazish’s setlist was explosive and upbeat, which definitely contributed to their third-place win at Legends. Each dance team has a theme behind their performance, and Saazish’s main theme was the magic school bus! Within that theme, they had many dances exploring more specific storylines, such as inside Ralphie, where they traveled inside Ralphie’s body and through the organs to find Miss Frizzle. Each song was carefully chosen and curated by the team captains and mixed together to create the perfect performance set list. Most of these songs can be seen as fusion songs between American hip hop and rap combined with Indian Bollywood or South Indian songs. Below is the complete list of every song performed by GA Saazish at Legends!

• Jimmy Cooks (Hiphop)
• DJ Tillu x Naatu Naatu  (Kuthu)
• Just Wanna Rock x Lat Lag Gayee (Hiphop)
• Blame x Sativa x Vaseegara (Hiphop)
• Party To Banti Hai (Bollywood)
• Orchestral Mix (Contemporary)
• Bhangra Remix
• Bugatti Remix Bhangra/Hip Hop

THE ROAD TO LEGENDS

The road to qualifying for the legends national championship is difficult and long. teams get points for beating other teams at various dance competitions that happen throughout the season. Georgia Saazish went to 4 of these competitions; Jhalak where they placed 2nd, Aaj Ka Dhamaka where they placed 2nd, Aag Ki Raat where they placed 1st, and Tufaan where they placed 2nd. The top nine teams in the country out of 100s qualify for the national championship. Saazish was 7th in the country and thus qualified for the national championship.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT – NAKUL SAJAN

Sophomore Nakul Sajan is a second-year member of Georgia Saazish. He is also currently one of five team captains. He joined the team during his freshman year at the University of Georgia. He had danced before college, but never considered joining a dance team while at UGA. He said that some of his close friends pushed him to try out for it, and he’s thankful every day that they did so! He also went into detail about their (almost) daily practices. They usually start at 8 pm and go until late. They start off with simple stretches and warmups and then move on to practicing individual segments. Those who are not dancing in those specific segments can go off to the side and talk or work on homework. At the end of each practice, they run through the entire set about two to three times. For Saazish, practice usually occurs three times a week, but when it’s the week leading up to a big competition, they practice every day!