Dance Performance in NSE Annual day...(part-3)

Finally the Big day came. We all were very very excited and anxiously waiting for the evening to come! The Annual Day event was supposed to start at around 7 and our performance was expected to begin at around 8. We attended half working day, had our lunch in the office and left at around 1:30 for the venue that is 'The Intercontinental' at Sahar International Airport Road, Andheri.
I left along with Vijayendra in Suraj's car. Vikram also was coming by his car with other group of around 3-4 girls. Rest of the gang was coming by Bus arranged by SWC, NSE.
We reached venue at about 3 and checked out the whole place. Who would not like being at a 7star luxurious hotel and that too when one has not to pay a single penny from his/her own pocket?! The place was marvelous.

There were some really nice big paintings on the walls around the spacious stairs. We clicked lot of pictures with great poses in numerous permutations and combinations!




In a while Tea – Coffee was served. There were 5-6 different types of Tea and a variety of biscuits just for us – Dancers!
One variety of the specially made Jain biscuits was so tasty that I still have their delicious taste on my tongue till today!





I had Assamese Lime Tea which had a very different aroma. After having tea/coffee-biscuits, we had a final rehearsal on the stage. The stage looked great. One of the Filmfare Award or some beauty pageant types!
However we felt it was smaller as compared to our NSE Audi stage. But it was decorated well with some wooden props. A disco light platform was also being specially prepared for NSE employees for the evening Dance party, following the event.
We only rehearsed once so as not to exhaust and tire ourselves. HitenSir was giving last instructions/tips on wireless mic. He was in great tension but looked chilled and excited. After that rehearsal, we went back stage.

Tried our costumes. Girls had already started with the make up and a special Iron man was called to iron our costumes. There was an air of haste and somewhat chaos all around but we were enjoying every moment. Some dresses had come at the last moment so many of us were busy trying those.
We didn't miss the opportunity to click pics in those sandoes and new dresses with make-up on! All this was so much fun!

The Banquet Hall where the stage was setup was decorated very well with the drapes and lights on the top with a huge elegant chandelier in the center.

All the chairs were also clothed with black and white covers alternately and with golden bows! Just below the stage a dance-floor was set up with glass covering disco-lights below the floor.
The center of the stage had stairs which led to this dance floor. The mood of the evening was building up...

At around 06:15 PM, first bus from NSE arrived and guests started entering the hall. Our excitement grew! We were all ready in the first set of dresses in which we were supposed to perform. The event began with speeches and some other facilitation program etc.
Our first dance performance was by the girls - Tuja Namo! It went very well. Half the girls were in Blue and the rest in yellow Indian Traditional dresses (wore by apsaras or dancers in the palaces of ancient Raj-gharanas). Though these dresses were not that royal, of superior quality or costly, they looked beautiful in that smoke-filled scarcely illuminated stage.
The first performance captivated the audience and we were all too excited to wait for our dance sequence! Audience appreciated the first dance with lot of cheering and clapping.

Second dance was 'Silsila ye Chahat ka..' by Tejashree and other girls where they were supposed to hold illuminated lamps in their hands and dance. Little time was left and still all the lamps were not ready with small LED bulbs with which they were supposed to be shown as illuminated diyas. Tejashree had to be more careful because her Diya was supposed to remain lit (that is the LED bulb of that diya to be ON) till the last moment and she had to do all the running around and dancing (including the 'special' peculiar hand movement of hers where she gave a beating to Aishwarya!) and her diya was flickering the most!!!

But that dance sequence also went very well and audiences liked it equally well. Third dance sequence was the western songs based and the dancers rocked! They set the stage on fire by their energetic and electrifying performance!

Audiences roared and cheered and clapped and were asking for more! ‘Once more's’ were also heard intermittently! Parody dance sequence was a major Hit! People loved the old - new fusion of songs and the humour aspect of this concept. While performing I saw some of the colleagues dancing lightly on their respective seats!
The expressions on their faces told it all how much fun they were having! Our 15 days rigorous rehearsals sessions were paying off! There were some goof ups in between in certain dance items - like in one of the western dance number somebody's, who was dancing in front, zip opened!

But he very cleverly managed to go back and correct the error. In another parody dance number one of my friends strived hard to remove his kurta, he had worn for the previous dance, but it was stuck and the dance began! His expressions I still remember and can't help myself from laughing till date!


Finally he used all his strength to get rid of the stuck kurta and literally ran to reach the stage and could manage to start with a little delay which was not even noticed by the audience! One more such instance was in the parody only where all the boys were supposed to tie a duppatta on their waists, but only half of them remembered and wore it actually! But these all details we could notice because we had the knowledge. Very few sharp people from the audience would even notice this small small goof-ups! That’s the plus point of a group dance! The parody sequence ended with an old song 'Tik Tik Tik Tik...' where all of us, some of us clad in western and the remaining in folk-based dresses, were supposed to come on stage and dance together holding each others hands. It really looked great and everybody enjoyed it thoroughly! The last set of dance sequence which comprised of bhangda, a pop-song and 'Jhoom barabar Jhoom...' number was performed after a short event. Here also in Bhangda, one of the dancers could not find the white coloured pant of right fitting so she came on the stage in black pants and we all other dancers were in white outfits for that dance number. But the dance went so well that this small imbroglio went unnoticed! The special stunts at the end of Bhangda number enthralled audience and they filled the hall with their appreciative feedback noise! The dance lights were creating the magical ambience more beautiful on the stage. In between the dance performances, smoke was also released to give a nice effect to the dance performance. There were two big screens put at the sides where we could see the performance from back-stage. The scene at the back stage was ultimate! You should have been there to know what I mean! There were so much noise, chaos, rush, haste! Dancers were all running here and there to change the dress for their next dance or to make the entry from the other side than their previous performance! I was enjoying all those moments very very much! Finally the last sequence ended with 'Jhoom barabar jhoom...' and we all used the stairs in the center of the stage to actually go down on the dance floor and call our colleagues, the audiences to join us on the dance floor!
What could have been a better end of a dance performance evening than this! It was so much fun! Joy was all there in the air! Our seniors, managers, subordinates all came on the dance floor enthusiastically and the party began!
After a while, we dancers were facilitated by a small but beautiful memento and the choreographers were presented with gifts and bouquets!
That was followed by another round of dance on the dance-floor. Some of us even used stage to dance and had a blast!
This was one of the Best evening of my life (and I am sure for many others among us too who had performed something of this scale on stage!).

Every time I hear a song on which we had performed that evening bring back the old sweet memories of rehearsal sessions and that grand performance evening back to my mind! I will always cherish these sweet memories for the rest of my life!

(The End...!)