Sangamam – A Night of Fun, Enjoyment and Laughter

Reading Time: 6 minutes

By Kaushik Rangaraj (17S06P)

Photo Credits: Guan Xin (17S06B) Additional Reporting by Narayanan Avinash (17S06S)

On 28th May 2016, PAC played host to ICS’s annual production Sangamam. It was the 11th year running that ICS had put up Sangamam and as ever, it was a successful one. Everyone contributed to make it an efficacious event.

The event started off with the song Tamil Thai Vazhthu sung by Muthukrishnan Vaishnavi (17S03F), a song sung in praise of the tamil language and culture, an age-old custom to mark the beginning of Indian events.

Guest of honour was Mr. K Barathan, the SINDA CEO, who graced the event along with of course, our very own principal Mr Chan Poh Meng.

GOH — Guest of Honour speech Mr. K Barathan, the SINDA CEO

This was followed by a performance by a few members of the Indian Dance. They danced beautifully to Raaga by maestro A.R. Rahman. All the audience members appreciated the immense skill levels of the dancers and rewarded them with a big round of applause at the end of their performance.

*Indian Dancers’ bewitching performance*

Raffles Alumni dancers too performed a piece for this event. It was a very captivating performance and everyone watched it intently, without ever taking their eyes off them. It was very kind of the performers to take time off their busy schedules and come down and perform for their juniors.

Then came the main attraction of the night, the drama, Pirathimai, பிரதிமை, meaning a form or puppet. It started off thrillingly with the lead actor, Narayanan Avinash (17S06S), running in from the back of the PAC onto the stage surprising everyone. It was an enthralling beginning, which had the viewers hooked and the audience were kept on the edge of their seats for the whole duration of the drama. Co-actors Natarajan Nachiappan (17S06O), Yuga Bharathi Chandramohan (17S03C) and Tharani d/o Sivakumaran (17S03P) performed brilliantly along with Avinash while Shanmugam Saha Dev (17S03F) had the audience falling off their seats laughing at his comedic statements and actions.

avinash — Avinash during the introduction

Other notable performers include Ashish Jayaprasad (16SO3K), who impressed with his exceptional portrayal of a man who lost everything, hilarious police trio Rishi Varman (alumni), C Vignesh Subramaniam (16SO6R) and Punniakotty Buvani (17S03P) and entertaining fake priests Vaanavan Sezhiyan (17S06O) and Balamurugan Vishnupriya (17S03P). The villain Sakthivel Baskaran (16SO6L) also played his part well. The plot was well-scripted and the audience enjoyed everything immensely.

It was intercepted by performances of singers and the much awaited couple dance. All the singers were well-prepared and hence performed the mashups admirably well, with almost no sign of a hitch. The choices of songs were also excellent as they included songs from popular movies like Naanum Rowdy Thaan and Thangamagan and also some English songs such as Sorry by Justin Bieber. Gwendolyn Kezia (alumni) performed admirably on the guitar and Buvani played the piano splendidly.

populartunes — Singers singing one of many popular tunes

All the couples had worked hard and it showed as everyone danced well. It was well-received as ever as everyone cheered hard the couples performing to popular tunes Tak Bak (Thangamagan), Pia… Pia.. (Ninaithale Inikkum) and Darling Dambakku (Maan Karate).

coupledance — Most awaited part of the night: Couple Dance

There was also a group dance which was the best of the night. It was part of the drama sequence as a dance troupe performing for a dance event. And as befitting an actual dance troupe, all the dancers were highly skilled and performed brilliantly. Everyone in the audience was in awe of the incredible moves the dancers pulled out as they danced really well. The plot was not left out during this and the dance was seamlessly fitted into the whole sequence.

Last but not least, at the end of the drama, there was the flashmob, where all the performers enjoyed themselves greatly. They danced to 4 high-tempo, fast-paced popular numbers, giving their all even though all of them were dead on their feet due to it being the last performance of the night. The audience enjoyed the last act of the night immensely and appreciated them with a huge round of applause.

Vice-president and lead actor Avinash had this to say about the whole event. “Sangamam was overall a fun and enriching experience. It allows those with no backgrounds in acting for instance to discover something new about themselves. I was pleasantly surprised at all the positive feedback I received after the show and all the laughs during the show. The rehearsals might have stretched until 10 in the night. However, the sacrifice was worth it. I encourage all Indians who join in the succeeding batches to be a part of Sangamam. Here’s to many more Sangamams.”

All in all, it was a night of fun, laughter and enjoyment for everyone. All the singers, dancers and actors enjoyed themselves as their long weeks of hard work paid off while the audience relished the impressive performances put by ICS. “Sangamam 2016 was an extremely well put together that had just the right mix of everything,” was the opinion of an audience member who did not wish to be named. So congrats to everyone on a job well done and good luck to next year’s performers!