Georgetown University South Asian Society announced Saturday that its annual dance show, Rangila, will be held at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House Stage instead of Gaston Hall, where structural issues on stage prevent performances with over forty-five people. Other dance groups, including GU Groove Theory, are being asked to move to other locations on campus for the same issues.
Georgetown’s prior relationship with the Kennedy Center through their Let Freedom Ring initiative allowed the President’s Office to reserve the space at such short notice. Ticket prices, however, have increased to 20 dollars from 15 in previous years. The performance will only occur one night this year, rather than two, and the dancers will have just one rehearsal on the morning of the performance to practice on the stage in the Kennedy Center. In the past, dancers were able to practice in Gaston multiple times.
Rangila had planned to perform in Gaston as usual this year until it found out last month that the stage was no longer suitable for performance because of a structural weakness in the support system under the stage.
“[The Center for Social Engagement] informed us that they had gone through some inspections and that they realized, with the impact that we have involved in Rangila dances and the amount of people that are on stage for that much time, that the stage was just structurally unsound for us to do Rangila on,” said Medha Chandorkar (COL ‘15), one of the Rangila Coordinators.
As many as 50 dancers could be on stage at once during Rangila, according to Chandorkar, and with the intense dance style involving sections of heavy jumping on stage, engineers deemed Rangila unsuitable for Gaston.
“Restrictions had to be placed on events with more than 45 people on stage at the same time, and events with continuous rhythmic dancing or significant jumping for a sustained period of time,” Erika Cohen-Derr, Director of the CSE, wrote in an email to the Voice.
Rangila will need to sell around 1800 tickets in order to fill the performance space, according to Chandorkar and Alisha Datwani (MSB ‘15), the other Rangila Coordinator. Were they to perform in Gaston for two nights, Rangila would have sold around 1600 tickets in total. Furthermore, the coordinators are also working with the University to find a way to transport students, both performers and audience members, to the Kennedy Center.
“We’re doing everything we can to provide transportation for students because we understand that Georgetown life is very based on campus,” Datwani said. “Rangila is a Georgetown show, and that’s something that we didn’t want to take away from it. But we would never pass up the opportunity to give our dancers a shot at the Kennedy Center either.”
Despite the technical issues preventing Rangila’s performance, other events have still taken place in Gaston. Participants in Mr. Georgetown, which occurred during Homecoming Weekend, all stood on the same Gaston stage, and Groove Theory performed a hip-hop routine.
However, the Department of Performing Arts informed Groove Theory a month ago that their showcase in the spring could not be held in Gaston due to the same structural issues.
Erika Debrosse (MSB ‘15), Groove Theory manager, said that the University did not provide her group with an explanation as to why it could perform on Gaston’s stage during Mr. Georgetown and not during their showcase.
Groove Theory, like Rangila, was required to find a new performance space despite having already safely performed on the Gaston stage. Groove Theory’s spring showcase in March will now be held in Lohrfink Auditorium, which will have a negative impact on their performance, according to Debrosse.
“Lohrfrink is not an appropriate stage for a dance show. First off, it is way too small for a large group such as Groove Theory,” Debrosse wrote in an email to the Voice. “Groove Theory performed in Lohrfrink for other events and we definitely had issues with spacing.”
Lohrfink has a smaller capacity than Gaston does, and Debrosse claimed that her group does not necessarily know how it will accommodate the number of people that hope to attend the showcase in the spring.
Representatives from both Groove Theory and Rangila said that the University did not provide them with a timeline for when Gaston would be fixed. The repairs, however, will most likely take place this summer in order not to disrupt certain events in Gaston, according to Cohen-Derr.
Rangila’s performance at the Kennedy Center will be a one-time booking for the 20th anniversary, according to Chandorkar and Datwani. Plans for a future venue for Rangila have not been made yet because of the short notice the group has had in trying to find a space for this year’s performance. Despite the setbacks that Rangila has faced, Datwani is optimistic that Rangila will find a space for next year.
“There’s enough love and passion for this show at Georgetown that it will never not happen,” Datwani said.
Photo by the Georgetown South Asian Society
