Baruch College’s South Asian Student Association partnered with the International Student Organization to hold “Dance Without Borders” on April 11 to demonstrate how dance can connect people across cultures.

At the event organized by SASA, attendees first were able to learn a Spanish-style dance taught by some members of ISO and then had an opportunity to learn an Indian dance led by members of SASA’s executive board.

The room was filled with laughter as students from a range of ethnic backgrounds danced along to the music being played on the screen.

And of course, there was free food: soda, chips and several boxes of pizza.

For the South Asian half of the event, club members demonstrated to the group how to dance Bhangra and showed videos of professional dancers doing it.

“I think [the event] went awesome,” said SASA President Sundeep Kaur. “We did have a pretty good turnout. I think it’s great how energetic it was in there and how many people are so open to learning different dance forms, especially the people that aren’t even dancers, but they want to learn.”

Aysha Eman, the secretary of SASA and one of the organizers of “Dance Without Borders,” said that she thinks the event succeeded at bringing students together.

“This event was so that everyone could see the different variety of dances we have throughout South Asia,” Eman, a freshman, said.

“I taught Bhangra and we had a little bit of Bollywood, so it was a little mixture of what all the countries have.”

Students who attended the event said they enjoyed learning about each other’s cultures and dancing together.

“It was fun. They taught us some Bhangra moves, which was really cool, and it was just fun getting everyone together and learning together,” said Shenez Stuart, a sophomore and member of ISO.

“I learned to be more involved in club life and learn from different cultures and, overall, just being open to learning [about] new cultures,” she added.

Other participants said they were happy to learn the dances of their own culture.

“I’m actually Punjabi and I wanted to learn dances about my culture, because I’m not that involved when it comes to the dances of my cultures, so I thought it was a good event to learn these steps,” Yashu Kumar, currently studying finance, said.

“My favorite part was actually the self-satisfaction of actually being able to do the dances.”