Children and adults alike are invited to experience an Expedition to India with Surteg Sandhu. Participants will engage with East Indian culture through hands-on workshops in Rangoli Art, Bhangra Dance, and a Cultural Showcase featuring demonstrations of traditional dress and greetings.

The Bhangra dance has traditionally been associated with the spring harvest festival Baisakhi. The beat of the drum and leaping bodies soon make the pulses race, until onlookers too jump into the ring of dancers and join them. In a typical performance, several dancers execute vigorous kicks, leaps, and bends of the body to the accompaniment of short folk songs which are small couplets written in the Punjabi language called boliyan.

 

Rangoli is an art form from India in which patterns are created on the floor in living rooms or courtyards using materials such as colored rice, dry flower, colored sand, or flower petals. The art form’s purpose is decoration. Participants will color their play sand with food colors and learn the use of hand, cone, and strainer to pour the materials into the art form.

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Surteg has presented over 700 programs in 100+ venues over the last 17 years. The programs cater to grades K-12 in Dance, Visual Arts and Social Studies. All workshops are hands-on, participatory and informational.

The Pro-Art Association is offering these workshops, and all events of our 2020-2021 season, at no cost to our community. These performances are supported in part by a grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts