Dancing on the ceiling — of the world

by MANISHA AGGARWAL-SCHIFELLITE

“I’m the first student from my community to come to Harvard College, and due to the limited number of [Burushaski] speakers, there is little work being done in preservation and documentation of this language, poetry, and music,” said Khan.
PHOTO/ Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff

Nosher Ali Khan earns Guinness record, turns spotlight on tradition, mountaineering culture of his region of Pakistan

Unable to see in front of him, Nosher Ali Khan stood carefully on the 19,850-foot mountain, trying to decide what to do next. He was stuck in the middle of a whiteout with a team of mountaineers, artists, filmmakers, and support workers. Moving forward wasn’t possible, because the cloud cover had reduced visibility to 2 percent.

“A lot can go wrong on a mountain,” said Khan, a sophomore economics concentrator from Hunza, Pakistan. “When nature isn’t on your side, you’re supposed to head back to safety.” He was on his way to summit Minglik Sar in the Karakoram Range of Pakistan in pursuit of a Guinness world record.

Fifteen minutes later, the clouds lifted, clearing the way to the top. Reaching the summit was “the most magical thing I had ever seen,” said Khan, who now holds the record for Highest Altitude Dance Party on Land — an event fueled on traditional folk tunes and EDM. “Taking that amount of equipment and doing the logistics of the summit had never been done before, and so many things could have gone wrong. We were lucky that so many things went right.”

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