You’ve got an Audition!

At this time of the year, cultural societies of various colleges are busy conducting rigorous auditions to select for their society the best-suited freshers. Audition is usually a fun-filled activity involving a lot of healthy interaction between the freshers and the seniors. It not only helps the freshers know their college better but also enables them to become an active part of a cultural activity.
Certain societies like Dramatics, Photography, Choreography, Fashion are typical to every college. But some colleges have certain offbeat societies as well. For instance Hansraj College has LYF i.e. Liberal Youth Forum, which is involved in contributing and addressing various issues they feel strongly about. Gargi College has a PMR society wherein the students basically help in managing all the events that are conducted in the college, the most prominent one being the annual festival.
A basic audition for any society is a 2-3-stage process and usually all colleges follow the same pattern. However some colleges choose to incorporate innovative rounds of their own. For their English Dramatics audition, Hindu college has a round called the sexual inhibition/fantasy round. In Hansraj Dramatics, the student is given a newspaper cutting and has to choose 5 words and prepare a skit based on those 5 words. Vastal, a student of Hansraj Dramatics Society says, “This is to check the creativity of an individual. We want people who can make an actual contribution to the society.”
In the auditions for any choreography or western dance society, the students are usually tested on their flexibility, posture and dance style. The choreographer that is chosen by a society annually plays an active role in the audition process. Usually auditions are conducted separately for choreography and western dance but Venky holds combined auditions where the students are later chosen by either society on the basis of the students’ interest or society requirements.
Colleges also have music societies and usually separate western music and Indian classical. Kirori Mal College, having one of the most active music society in the university with as many as 7 seats from the ECA category. They haven’t selected anybody in the past 2 years in the general audition process. Their audition process has a separate jam session round and numerous rounds to check whether a student has a musical ear. This year they have selected general candidates as well. Anukriti Bishen, the secretary of the music society of KMC says, “The lot this year was extremely enthusiastic and ardent about getting into the society.”
All the colleges hope to put their best foot forward as they have registered a very talented lot of freshers.