On Feb. 8, students from colleges all over the country traveled to the University of Connecticut to participate in the first annual “Rang De Storrs.” Rang De Storrs is a Raas competition, which is a traditional folk-dance originating from Gujarat, according to the Raas All Stars webpage.
This event was coordinated entirely by UConn students, stemming from the 34 members of the Rang De Storrs Board. This board was led by four directors: Samveda Menon, Pardhip Nair, Sidharth Masarur and Shravani Daptardar.
“Board members were involved as direct planners of this event, each with individual positions and roles. This event would not have been possible without their swift adjustments, especially when we made the call on Friday night to switch to a modified snowstorm schedule and had to rework all of our timings during an all-nighter with our entire board,” said Samveda Menon, sixth-semester molecular and cellular biology major.
Additionally, 24 students were selected to be liaisons, who guided the competing teams and helped them navigate the Northern Connecticut and Hartford areas, according to Menon.
Eight teams arrived to compete in the competition: Northeastern Nakhraas, University of Florida Gatoraas, University of Central Florida Knightraas, Rutgers University Raga, George Washington University Raas, Purdue University Raas, University of South Florida SoFlo Raas and WashU Raas. The teams arrived on Friday.
The Rang de Storrs team had “organized a Friday mixer event where teams arrived, got to meet each other and played games to determine what order they would perform. On Saturday, teams arrived at the venue and put on a spectacular show for the audience of over 450 people from across Connecticut,” according to Sidharth Masurar, sixth-semester biomedical engineering major.
The extreme weather did require some changes in the schedule for the event, according to the board of directors. “The snow forced us to move up our timings across the board. We had to move up our morning tech (practice) times and then start our show earlier than the original time. It required constant and great communication from our entire board, which they were able to do seamlessly. We appreciate our entire 34-person board for their adaptability and putting this event on despite the challenges. Everybody worked to understand and give teams a five-star experience despite the snow throwing a wrench in our plans,” said Pardhip Nair, sixth-semester mathematics and statistics major.
At the end of the event, the judges crowned Purdue Raas 1st place, Northeastern Nakhraas 2nd place, and UF Gatoraas 3rd place, according to the Rang de Storrs Instagram account.
“Even Raas All-Stars themselves were all saying that this was one of the best comps they had been to,” said Shravani Daptardar, sixth-semester analytics and information management major.
The event was such a success that plans are already being made for “Rang De Storrs ‘26,” according to the board of directors.
“The whole experience [of the event] was surreal. As members of a Raas team ourselves, we had always been on the receiving end of these competitions’ hospitality and planning, so to be the one executing it all was an amazing experience. The weekend was a blur because of how much there was to do and how fast we had to make changes, but after the event was over, taking a step back made us realize that this was something we’d done, and our months of hard work had paid off, as teams and UConn students,” Daptardar said.