A five-member team of girls from Bengaluru won the gold at the Dance World Cup, also known as the Olympics of Dance, held in Portugal recently.
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The five girls — Sriharini Arunmozhi, Keerthana Sethupathy, Aadhya Sachin, Sai Bhavani, and Sanjana Naveen — represented India in the folklore dance category and won the coveted prize. The event was held at the Theatre Circo, Braga, Portugal.
Ten-year-old Sriharini said, “It was very exciting to perform at the Dance World Cup and bring laurels to our country. Felt very happy and emotional when our group name was announced as the winner. I have participated in many competitions, but this one would be a moment that I will cherish for a long time.” Eleven-year-old Keerthana said, “I felt very happy that all the hard practices we had done had paid off, and I felt so elated that we had won gold.”
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Dance World Cup is an all-genre dance competition for children and young adults around the world. Over 120,000 competitors from 62 countries compete at their country qualifiers, and over 6,000 of the best dancers around the world represent their country.
Eleven-year-old Aadhya could not hide her emotions. She said, “On the day of the show, when the names of our whole Bharatanatyam group were announced as the first place, I unlocked all my emotions — crying out of joy, happy tears.” Sai Bhavani and Sanjana, two 18-year-olds, said that this indeed was a great opportunity and representing the nation and winning gold brings them utmost pride.
Their dance trainer, Samyuktha Shankar, added, “Seeing our students win the gold medal in the folklore category at the Dance World Cup for India filled my heart with immense pride and joy, knowing that their hard work and dedication had paid off, and they had become shining examples of talent and perseverance.”