DU societies: Perform, record, send your clip to be campus cool virtually

Delhi Universities students share how cultural societies are adopting a virtual mode, auditions getting somewhat delayed due to exams, yet creating a stir due to high enthusiasm of freshers.

Hey, fresher! Attended online classes and digital orientation? Now give your best shot to make it to the hip societies of your college. And needless to say, this is happening online, too!

Auditions for various societies used to be held with great fervour on campus in pre-Covid times. This year, these are being hosted online.(Photo: Sushil Kumar/HT)

Arvada, president of Adhrita: The Indian Dance Society of Hindu College, says, “We are conducting online auditions in two rounds. Round one will have students, who are interested, send a two-minute video of them performing any dance form, and for round two, we will be conducting an online workshop with a choreographer, who will judge the ability of these students to learn within a stipulated time.”

And Stephanians aren’t behind when it comes to hand picking the best talent for their ECA societies! “Of course every society wants the best talent to join in so that competitions and fests can be real fun,” says Hamza Matto, vice president of Bazm-e-Adab, Urdu Literary Society at St Stephen’s College. He adds, “The USP of our society is qawwali night and Eid lunch, but those can’t happen digitally... We recently organised an online orientation for the students, where everyone recited poetry live, and the old society members were introduced to the freshers. It was a very different feeling to e-meet, but we all enjoyed ourselves.”

Most society presidents say they would prefer conducting offline auditions, but freshers have been responding so enthusiastically to even online activities that they don’t mind changing their mindset for the time duration of the pandemic. “All this is difficult for us, however we have to do this for the time being. We started with orientation, and introduced our society digitally to the freshers,” says Fatima Naz Jamali, president of Moksh, The Dramatics Society of Sri Aurobindo College, sharing that since semester began later this year, exams are round the corner, and they need time to prepare. “Auditions we’ll host digitally in the next few months; we are all hoping the campus might reopen then. For now we are forming WhatsApp groups, and updating videos of our society’s performances from previous years, so that the freshers can join and understand how #DramSoc works in our college. The freshers are really excited; we have been receiving endless calls from aspiring freshers about what happens in the dramatics society. In auditions, we might ask the students to act impromptu. Later, we’ll have online sessions where scriptwriting, storytelling and dramatic society’s games will be taught,” adds Jamali.

“We have been receiving endless calls from freshers about what happens in the dramatics society. In auditions, we might ask the students to act impromptu.”
– Fatima Naz Jamali from Sri Aurobindo College

Speaking about the good response from freshers, Arvada adds, “Students have been enthusiastic and excited uptill now. They are reaching out to us to get an idea of what kind of videos they have to shoot. They are also trying to get an idea about how extra curricular activities add another aspect to their college life. We are used to teaching new dance forms physically, so it’s really difficult for us to teach any new folk dance form digitally. But we are planning to host online workout sessions every week, and teach choreographies through small workshops.”

Author tweets @FizzyBuddha

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