Rain Dance
Music: Nivedita ShivRaj
Dance: Preston Burger



notes:
Rain Dance symbolizes our relationship with nature and portrays the joy that rain brings. It is a musical composition based on the Indian Raga – Amirtha Varshini (the sweet showers) and has been played on the multi-stringed instrument Veena with Indian musical instruments Mridangam and Morsing (Jews harp) along with digital music.Nivedita ShivRaj is a composer, performer and teacher of Carnatic Music (South Indian style of classical music), proficient in both vocal and instrumental forms and plays the ancient multi-stringed instrument "Veena". Preston Burger graduated from Princeton University with a BA in Psychology and a minor in Dance. He currently dances for Daniela Hoff Dance Company and studies in the Cunningham Professional Training Program. The Cherokee tribe of North America believed that performing rain dances - ritualistic dances intended to invoke rain - were a way to purge the earth of evil spirits; the spirits of past chiefs, the Cherokee believed, battled with the evil spirits in the transitional plane between human reality and the spiritual universe.