Nilesh's Posterous

Garba and Dandiya Raas for Navratri @ Santa Clara Convention Center

This evening, I went to a Garba event in the South Bay at the Santa Clara Convention Center in celebration of Nav Ratri & Durga Pooja. One would never know you were in the USA at that event. There should have been well over 1500 Indians or so gathered at the event, everybody dressed up in their colorful traditional dresses and dancing Garba and Dandiya Raas. I tried Garba and it was pretty hard for me, but Dandiya Raas wasn't that bad and I managed it not too badly. Always great to go to these cultural events and immerse oneself in them.

Filed under // culture dancing garba hindu indian food santa clara south bay

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Street Tango Dancing, Buenos Aires, Argentina

While walking around in Buenos Aires, I encountered many tango street performances. It's always great to watch such great shows for a few pesos donation. I did not have too much time while there to take extensive tango lessons, but I did try it a couple of times in my hostels.. the basic steps and beat isn't too bad.. but I am sure combining them together to look gracious is a whole another story :)

Filed under // argentina buenos aires dancing south america backpacking street street performer tango video

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Lima Pena Show - Traditional Dances of Peru

While I was in Lima, Lia took me to a Pena Show - a traditional show featuring the culture, dances and different costumes from all the different parts of Peru. I really enjoyed the show and the dances. At the end of the show, the MC went around and asked people where they were from and got representatives from each country present in the crowd on stage and got everybody a flag of their country.. but of course they would not have one for Mauritius.. Then, he asked to perform a dance featuring their traditional culture !! I told them that we don't dance in Mauritius.. but he insisted and got me to dance to some Brasilian tunes on stage :)

Filed under // dancing lima peru south america backpacking travel travelogue video

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Tango Dancing at my hostel

They had a nice tango performance tonight at the hostel I am staying in Iguazu, followed by free Tango lessons !

Sent from my iPhone

Filed under // argentina dancing hostel iguazu south america backpacking tango travel travelogue

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Great time at Stern Grove watching San Francisco Ballet perform. #fb

Its the one before last Stern Grove Free Concert series (http://www.sterngrove.org) this Sunday. They had SF Ballet (http://www.sfballet.org/) performing today.

Decided to go and check it out. it was my first live ballet performance ever and it was awesome ! loved it.

Filed under // ballet crowd dancing san francisco stern grove sunset district

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San Francisco Sunday Streets : Mission District

Every month, the city of San Francisco organizes Sunday Streets (http://sundaystreetssf.com/) in one neighborhood, where they close off the streets and people can just enjoy walking, biking on the streets in 'safer' environment (intro from website :: Sunday Streets creates a safe, fun, car-free place for people to get out and get active in San Francisco neighborhoods.) They also have many activities planned on the streets by different group, free bike rentals, roller skates rentals etc.. pretty fun. This week they had it in the mission district (http://sundaystreetssf.com/?page_id=474). It was awesome. Enjoyed it a lot and disovered many new places in the mission, in places i rarely ventured. After SF streets, we went to Dolores park to a huge crowd, where the SF symphony orchestra was playing for free. Annie had planned a potluck picnic where it was great to meet up and spend the sunday afternoon in great company and great food !