FIA NY NJ CT’s 36th Annual Dance Pe Chance’ 2019 – 71th Republic Day Celebrations

Over 500 Participants, 21 Performances set a new high for FIA as it sores past the milestone of having touched the lives of over 18,000 children via this cultural performance competition spanning over 3 decades.

Celebrity Judges and distinguished invitees included – DCG NY – H E  Shatrughna Sinha , Actor & Kathak dancer Prachee Shah Paandya, Actor and Athlete Prachi Tehlan and the super 30 fame mathematical maestro Anand Kumar, who was the Chief Guest graced the event with their presence.

Saturday, Jan 25th, NJ – The Federation of Indian Associations (FIA) of the tristate, one of the oldest and the largest nonprofit Umbrella Organization of the Indian Diaspora celebrated India’s 71th Republic Day in grandeur with its annual show “Dance Pe Chance” promoting the 2nd generation of the Indian Diaspora while promoting the culture and heritage at the Patriots War Memorial Theatre in Trenton, New Jersey.

The show a cultural dance performance competition among the youth from various dance schools of two different states participated in the festive spirit to prove their mettle at the “Dance Pe Chance” dance competition. Thirteen dance schools performed in front of a full crowd in four categories: Minor, Junior, Senior and Adult. Aum Dance Creations, Arya Dance Academy, Aatma Performing Arts, B2Z Dance School, Dancing Shiva, Nruthu Aaloka Dance Vision, Nirmiti School of Dance, Nritya Creations, Shake it up dance school, Dance4Ever, Taal Institute of Performing Arts, Dansation, and Taraang with Mitali were among the schools that participated.

The event commenced with the National Anthem of US and India, during his welcome address DPC Chair Saurin Parikh welcomed the spectators and applauded the children parents and choreographers. He also dedicated the 36th year of this cultural performance competition to children with this year total surpassing the accumulated total of over 18000 children that have participated in this cultural dance competition that spans 3 decades.

The community event also honored the dignitaries in attendance, judges, guests and the traditional ceremony of oath for the FIA’s incoming executive committee of 2020 – Anil Bansal President; Himanshu Bhatia, Executive Vice President; Saurin Parikh, Vice President; Praveen Bansal, General Secretary; Amit Ringasia, Treasurer; Alok Kumar, Immediate Past President and Mardavi Patel, Joint Secretary. The oath was administered by Deputy Consulate General New York Shatrughan Sinha who was on hand, acknowledged and welcomed the incoming FIA Executive team. He expressed his appreciation for the role FIA has played in the community for 49 years and how working CGI-NY and FIA working in sync is pivotal and progressively benefits  the Indian diaspora here in the Northeast.

Also present was Representative from the Governor’s office, aid to the Governor – Rajpal Bath who administered the oath to two new members added by FIA to the Board of Trustees, Srujal Parikh, Past President & Andy Bhatia, Past President both long-time FIA veterans.  Chairman Ramesh Patel recognized the support of the FIA Board that currently holds a line of distinguished community leaders including Ramesh Patel, Padma Shri H R Shah, Padma Shri Dr. Sudhir Parikh, Albert Jasani, Ram Gadhavi, Dipak Patel, Chandrakant Trivedi, Pravin Pandhi, Ankur Vaidya, Jayesh Patel & Yash Paul Soi.

FIA 2020 President Anil Bansal thanked the 2019 team and expressed his gratitude for trust placed on him by the FIA fraternity in electing him to lead in 2020 and assured continued engagement with the diaspora assistance programs as well as grandeur celebrations to mark FIA’s 50 years of completion.

Participants were judged by an array of talented personalities including Anindita Nanda, an exponent of Odissi, internationally-acclaimed classical dancer and an Indian vocalist,  Paromita Chakravarty an accomplished Bharatnatyam Practitioner, theater artist and choreographer, Pranaya Akula, trained in Bharatnatyam and a dance teacher, and Swati Vaishnav, the owner of a dance academy Nartan Rang Dance Dance Academy who have won multiple dance competitions both nationally and internationally. The event was sponsored by Radio Mirchi, Air India, Republic Tv, TV Asia, Parikh Worldwide Media & South Asian Times.

FIA in its first launched an e-bi-weekly diaspora news mailer and performed a beta app test for popular audience voting app which saw an accumulated total of over 7000 votes cast.  The app vote scores were not included due to the beta version of the app being tested.  FIA plans to incorporate this as a part of the counted vote score in the coming competitions.   Concluding with the announcement of results, FIA also honored all the dancers, choreographers and judges with Prize-Winning amounts, mementos, and certificates.