Indian Dance Comes to Life at UNC Silent Sam UNC’S Indian Dance Groups Will Not Bring Together Culture and Commitment
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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2020 127 YEARS OF SERVING UNC STUDENTS AND THE UNIVERSITY VOLUME 128, ISSUE 1 Indian dance comes to life at UNC Silent Sam UNC’s Indian dance groups will not bring together culture and commitment. return to By Mary King Staff Writer campus The DTH watched competition rehearsals and interviewed UNC System leaders said the representatives from each of monument will not return at UNC’s four Indian dance teams to capture their specialization, style a meeting on Friday. and personality. By Anna Pogarcic City & State Editor Tar Heel Raas UNC System Board of Governors Chairperson Randy Ramsey said Sharp, synchronized sounds Silent Sam will be secured away from ring through a multipurpose room UNC’s campus at a meeting Friday. in Rams Head Recreation Center. The Board responded to the About a dozen dancers pivot around reversal of its settlement with the the floor, each holding two wooden North Carolina Division Sons of sticks, called dandiya. The dancers Confederate Veterans Inc. during clash them together while hopping, the meeting. stomping and twirling. Ramsey said the Board is getting When they use the dandiya, the distracted and should be focusing dance is called Raas. When they DTH/SEMANUR KARAYAKA on more important efforts, like don’t, it’s called Garba. Tar Heel Raas The members of UNC group Tar Heel Raas rehearse in Rams Head Recreation Center on Monday, Feb. 17, 2020. university governance. But he did specializes in both. address the settlement directly. Raas and Garba come from Gujarat, helps him stay in touch with his roots. heading to South Asian Showdown, As an Indian-American fusion “While I’m very disappointed a state in western India, Tar Heel Raas “I love it a lot,” he said. “I think it’s a competition in Boston. This year, dance group, it performs Indian dance that happened, we are getting the co-captain Nirbhay Sutaria said. the best thing that I’ve done in college.” the group’s competition piece is styles like Bollywood and Bhangra, University’s money back, and we As they rehearse, the dancers laugh As the dancers of Tar Heel Raas “Mary Poppins.” along with American genres like jazz, will be securing the monument away and affectionately poke fun. The practice, theirs aren’t the only audible UNC Chalkaa Internal Manager hip-hop and contemporary. from campus,” he said. “And we will atmosphere is friendly, but also intense. sounds. Another cacophony can be Anoova Guthikonda said each segment “It’s supposed to be representative deal with it in due course.” The group focuses, trying to coordinate heard just feet away, in the gym — of the group’s seven-minute-long of our identities as Indian Americans, He said the Board is aware of the its movements with exact precision. where UNC Chalkaa is rehearsing. competition set highlights a different as Asian Americans, because law that requires the statue to be put Sutaria said that lately, they’ve been portion of the “Mary Poppins” story. everyone on the team listens to both in another place of prominence. practicing eight to 12 hours each week, UNC Chalkaa For example, they will use a loud, Indian music and American music, “We are focused on safety on this dancing until midnight in preparation energetic form of Indian dance to and it’s just a part of our identity,” campus, and that is our primary for competition. “One, two, three, four! Five, six, represent the unruly children. Treasurer Keshav Javvadi said. “And concern,” he said. “We are not Sutaria, a junior statistics major, has seven, eight!” The co-captains call “We use the different styles of so, we wanted to bring that identity looking for an unlawful solution to danced with Tar Heel Raas since his first out the counts, yelling over the dance to kind of go hand-in-hand to life on stage. So that’s where the the monument.” year at UNC. He said his family is from basketballs bouncing on the opposite with the story that we tell to make fusion part comes in.” He declined to comment on Gujarat, where Raas and Garba are most half of the court. it a more captivating show for the whether the state legislature should popular, and dancing with this group In two weeks, UNC Chalkaa is audience,” Guthikonda said. SEE INDIAN DANCE, PAGE 7 change the law. Interim UNC System President Bill Roper emphasized the desire to find a lasting solution, but he said the process to get the money and the Shelton made UNC field hockey a dynasty statue back may take a while. “But there are many more The head coach is one of the phone call to Shelton in 1980, she important issues facing the figured she’d have some convincing University, the University System most successful in the sport’s to do. and the Board of Governors,” he said. history — and still going. Hunter was at the end of her The monument will not return to fifth year as coach of the UNC field campus, he said. By Parth Upadhyaya hockey team and she was ready to It’s unclear how long it will take Senior Writer step away. Wanting to make sure her the Board to determine the ultimate team, which had an overall record of fate of the monument, but Orange It’s 8 a.m. on a mid-January 54-27-3 during her tenure, would be County Superior Court Judge Allen morning, and a woman, standing in good hands, she called one of the Baddour determined Thursday about 5-foot-5 and wearing a navy most highly-profiled field hockey that the SCV has 45 days to return blue parka and black boots, uses a players in the U.S. the remaining balance of the $2.5 shovel to scrape ice off the artificial Shelton, then 23, was two years million trust to the University. turf at Karen Shelton Stadium. removed from a collegiate career at Baddour originally approved the The stadium, home of the reigning what was then West Chester State settlement in November 2019 before back-to-back national champion North College in Pennsylvania, where she overturning it earlier in February. Carolina field hockey team, is named was a three-time national player of Ramsey stood by the original after the Tar Heels’ 62-year-old Hall of the year. settlement on Friday. Fame head coach, who’s won 22 ACC She didn’t think she wanted to “We hoped our action would titles and eight NCAA championships be a head coach, but “fell in love DTH FILE/ANGELINA KATSANIS allow the University to focus on the in her 39 years with the program. immediately” on her first visit to Karen Shelton smiles after the field hockey team won the NCAA Championship core responsibilities while keeping But this morning, it’s Karen Chapel Hill. Shelton returned in the game against Princeton University in Kentner Stadium on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2019. Chapel Hill safe,” he said. Shelton herself scraping ice off the summer of 1981 to interview with He emphasized that the field. She has a practice to prepare for. then-athletic director John Swofford, “Karen and others were pioneers priority in the world of college sports monument is not where the Board “I’ve never felt I am above doing who said that despite her inexperience, in bringing it all forward,” he said. — even on UNC’s own campus. should be focusing its time. Instead, anything,” Shelton said. “I’m going Shelton’s on-field accolades and “sheer Success came quickly for Shelton’s The team had to share Navy Field he said they should concentrate on to participate in everything that passion for the sport” made her an program, but wasn’t until Shelton as a practice site with Mack Brown’s the current presidential search, and needs to be done here. And I think attractive candidate. won her first NCAA championship football team and the marching applauded individual campuses for that stems back from the ‘80s when I Shelton made a starting salary of in 1989 that Swofford promoted her band. Even still, field hockey fell last continuing to focus on their students. had to do everything. And I’ve always $7,700 with no benefits. to full-time. By the end of the 1990 in the pecking order out of the three, “That monument does not felt like it doesn’t matter — if it needs “As long as I could pay my rent and season, the Tar Heels had been to forcing Shelton’s group to practice educate students, it does not run to be done, we’ve got to get it done.” buy some food, I was okay,” she said. four Final Fours. Still, there was no every night from 7 to 9:30 p.m. the universities, it does not make It’s this mindset that’s driven In the 1980s and for much of glitz or glamour in the life of a UNC Then, before the 1995 season, the governance decisions regarding our Shelton to build a juggernaut out of the 1990s, the investment in non- field hockey player. NCAA came to town as part of a Title university, and this Board is here to a program that was only 10 years old revenue collegiate sports simply On road trips, Shelton would drive IX compliance study. Things changed. govern this University and educate when she took it over in 1981. wasn’t what it is today. Title IX was her team to games in a 15-passenger Practice times were moved to 1 the students of North Carolina,” he passed in 1972, nine years before van.