Aurangabad: Six female students of the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) school in Naregaon brought laurels to the city by performing at the National Roleplay and Folk Dance Competition held in New Delhi recently. The feat is significant for Naregaon, which was earlier identified by its 30-year-old dump yard.The national-level cultural festival was jointly organized by the social science department of the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) and the National Population Education Project from December 4 to 7 at the Sri Aurobindo Marg in New Delhi. 650 participants from across the country participated in the fest, which was themed around the Beti Bachao campaign.When first told about the national level competition five months ago, headmistress Tilottama Mapari and teacher Anita Patil decided to train their students on a Haryanvi folk song for the folk dance competition. The group comprised of 9th and 8th graders Manasi Gaikwad, Shruti Khandala, Pooja Ghade, Shalini Khandala, Sneha Aarvade and Anjali Bhalekar. They had earlier stood first at the city-level, district-level and state-level competitions in order to make it to the national event.“With the minimum resources available to us, innovative ideas played a big role in helping us to choreograph the dance, select the costume and jewellery and to make the girls confident,” choreographer Anita Patil said.The experience of performing at the national-level was great exposure for the girls as they belong to lower middle class families. Most of their parents are daily wage earners and lack socio-economic development.Mapari said that the encouragement from municipal commissioner Nipun Vinayak had been significant in helping the school to reach the national level. When asked at the event about why the group chose to exhibit a Haryanvi folk dance instead of a Maharashtrian one, Shruti spontaneously replied that India is a country of different cultures that celebrates its unity in diversity. So they decided to learn about Haryana’s folk dance and exhibit it.

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