The ITS Saman Dance Team taking a group photo when participating at the Saman Dance Competition at Tunjungan Plaza on Friday (18/10).

ITS Campus, ITS News — The Saman Team of Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) started to showcase its skills and talents. Not even two months after its formation, this team consisting of 20-30 students won third place at the Saman Dance Competition, Paperusila Level, which was held by the Islam Economics Student Association of Universitas Airlangga in a series of Sharia Fair at Tunjungan Plaza on Friday (18/10).

In their performance, the ITS Saman Sanggar Community presented its 13 best dancers with one sheikh and one drummer. Najatul Muslim Dinatra, who played the role of sheikh in the team, claimed that the team’s compact and varied movements successfully captivated the judges. In addition, he also mentioned that his team was the only team that followed the actual saman’s requirements, namely having men as sheikhs and drummers.

“Maybe this was one of the reasons we won,” joked this ITS student of batch 2017.

Naja, as he is familiarly called, continued that the team’s journey, from the very beginning until being able to tackle such an achievement, required preparation that was definitely not easy. It took a very gruesome and intensive training as well as training for two hours every day.

This student from Aceh also expressed that besides being drained physically due to the packed training, they were also very much drained mentally. This was due to the fact that in Saman competitions, various movement innovations are needed. However, this community did not seek professional help and preferred to create their own variations of the movement.

“In order to minimize expenses, we (members of the ITS Saman Team, red) made our authentic variations of the movement, which was not that hard because some of our team members had previously joined saman clubs in high school,” revealed Yolla Eka Rahmanda, a member of the ITS Saman Team who had the chance to be interviewed by the ITS Online Crew.

Naja also conveyed that their journey in preparing for this competition was not always easy, there were several obstacles that had to be faced, one of which was the costume section. Since they were just formed, their team did not own their own costumes yet. Therefore, they had to rent costumes, which of course required expenses.

“In order to solve this problem, we were forced to use the team’s fund as well as ask each member of the team to give some cash,” explained Naja.

At the end of the interview, Naja explained that in the future, the ITS Saman community plans to expand their wings to explore international competitions. “Apart from that, we also have a plan to make the Saman community an official Student Activity Unit (UKM) at ITS,” he concluded. (ion19/rur/ory)

The happiness of the ITS Saman Team after being awarded as the third winner