0:02

[Music]

0:17

>> Shivani: Hey my name is Shivani and 
this is Team Nritya.

0:20

You’re watching MAD.

0:22

[Transition Music]

0:27

I came to Canada as an international student.

0:30

So as soon as I left my country, India, my mom was very much worried

0:35

that how will I stay connected with 
my passion.

0:38

So when I came here,

0:40

with all the daily hustles of working for a part-time job,

0:43

paying international fees and submitting assignments,  

0:47

I lost the energy to work for my passion.

0:51

So Team Nritya is about everyone who leave their country for a better career,

0:56

better life, to provide better life 
for their families

0:59

to stay connected with their passions.

1:01

So basically Team Nritya comprised of 
present or former international students.

1:07

I still remember those days when I literally

1:09

go to a lot of students, I used to approach them and uh used  

1:15

to convince them that please join the team and stay connected with your passion.

1:19

This is about providing platform for you to stay connected.

1:22

Even though if they really wanted

1:25

to do dance –to continue dancing–

1:27

they have their part-time jobs and then everything like that so they weren’t able to.

1:32

So it took almost two years for us to form this team

1:36

and for the struggles like we had no dance background in here.

1:40

We had zero contacts.

1:41

So I started approaching uh the organizers of the show on Instagram.

1:46

We had a show for which we practiced 
for about three months

1:50

and the organizer didn’t even inform us that the show got cancelled.

1:53

So two days prior to the show we kept calling the organizer  

1:57

and then we were being informed that 
oh because uh

2:00

your team wasn’t very known we totally forgot to inform about you.

2:03

So those were the struggles.

2:05

Even in finding the teammates we couldn’t find everyone from the same city

2:09

so right now there is a girl who travels all the way from Windsor or Sarnia

2:13

every single weekend in order to practice.

2:16

So we had struggle in getting shows because of lack of references

2:20

and then collecting people to

2:23

leave their daily life for a while and stay and connect with their passion.

2:27

Our field job is our ultimate goal when you come here as a student. 

2:32

So I just assume that okay the day 
when I’m gonna get my field job

2:37

that will be the ultimate achievement and my success story in Canada.

2:41

But after starting to work for my field job I eventually realized that

2:45

this is not really something that’s gonna make me happy.

2:48

This is definitely gonna help me to pay my international student loans but

2:52

this is not gonna feed the satisfaction to my soul.

2:55

So right from that day I decided that no matter what

2:59

–how many fail attempts we’re gonna have but we are gonna make this team up.

3:03

And we had like members

3:05

who will come, who will join the team, show up for one day

3:08

and then they will just disappear.

3:09

So it took literally a lot of time to form a rock solid team

3:13

but right now I’m so proud to say that every single person on board  

3:17

is extremely dedicated to dance.

3:20

Especially talking about Brampton, uh uh

3:22

the struggle and that concern was with the people or families

3:26

who are very well settled over here.

3:29

And for a person like me, who has  

3:31

no relatives or no friends when I arrived in here,

3:34

so we were feeling little bit dominated by the families

3:37

who were already settled here in Canada.

3:40

So it took a little while to struggle and prove them

3:43

that we have got that talent so please 

3:46

respect us a little bit and send your kids to us for dance lessons.

3:49

And for almost one and a half 
year, I believe, I taught dance for free.

3:55

Just to let people know that I have got this talent

3:58

and it will be totally worth it to send your kids to us.

4:01

And now we don’t need to do any kind of marketing.

4:05

We have people coming in by mouth to mouth marketing.

4:10

[Music]

5:04

>> Ankit: My name is Ankit

5:06

I’ve been partnering with Shivani since last three or four years

5:10

when we came to Canada.

5:11

>> Shivani: Back home we had family,
we had friends, we had relatives,

5:16

but in this country we were completely on our own.

5:19

>> Ankit: Main thing, especially for something like dance  

5:21

and culture and arts, we had networks over there 
 

5:24

because we have grown in same society, but here

5:27

we don’t know where things are happening.

5:29

We just stalk the Instagram and scared to even ask

5:31

hey, how should we do this?

5:33

>> Shivani: And almost like after three 
years we had our first show with BMM.

5:37

On Friday night, we will meet, we will practice.

5:40

On Saturdays we’ll practice and on Sundays we’ll shoot.

5:42

So that’s how our schedule looks like.

5:45

We have to get our costumes from India.

5:48

So luckily our parents work so hard to get everything right on one place

5:53

and they they couriered out the costumes but they were  

5:57

on hold due to the COVID.

5:59

And luckily day before our show…

6:01

>>Ankit: Thursday evening.

6:03

>>Shivani: …it was just a magic.

6:04

Costumes just arrived.

6:07

[Music]

6:24

>> Ankit: It was like dream come true because especially we love the ambiance

6:28

that Monster, that you guys, created on stage.

6:31

The music was so loud, the cameras, 
the lights were so…

6:34

and we were so excited like every day we would count.

6:36

Yeah! When is the 24th? When is 24th coming?

6:39

>> Shivani: Yeah, we literally have this countdown in our WhatsApp group that  

6:42

okay this many days to go, we cannot wait to see ourselves on Facebook Live.

6:46

>> Ankit: And I shared with all my friends that please share, please share

6:49

and hopefully like.

6:51

Someone would have a proper video where we can see you because we…

6:54

>> All: Keep watching ourselves repeatedly.  

6:57

>> Shivani: Especially with this situation in COVID, I

7:00

like we were really happy the way 
that BMM has handled the whole situation,

7:04

launched everything virtually.

7:06

So it just kept us going because we totally lost our hope that

7:10

in 2020 we are never gonna get any platform to showcase our talent

7:14

but the way they have handled the things in this pandemic it’s it’s incredible.

7:18

>> Ankit: It was because people started noticing us on online platform.  

7:22

That’s really a great thing for us because uh 

7:24

we don’t have a lot of social presence currently,

7:27

but BMM, with this with this online thing we got at least some social presence  

7:34

and people started to know us while talking to them.

7:36

And they had some beautiful comments about our costumes and stuff because

7:40

it was so colorful.

7:41

So it was really good that they now know us personally as well as a team

7:45

that performs on such a colorful costumes and does a Western dance.

7:51

[Music]

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