Despite being in its first year, student-led Indian dance team Hook’em Bhangra is already finding its beat on campus. 

Bhangra, a form of traditional folk dance from the Punjab regions of India and Pakistan, is a celebratory fusion of dance and music, highly centered around energetic dance steps and beats. 

Captain and sophomore psychology major Shreya Kaur started Hook’em Bhangra as a way to bring people from different cultures together and looks forward to competing at local, state and eventually national levels. Heading into the team’s first semester together, she said cultivating a competitive and close-knit group is Hook’em Bhangra’s biggest goal.

“When we’re coming together as a team, our goal is the same,” Kaur said. “We’re not trying to be segregated in any way. We want to learn from each other. We want to make sure that everybody’s getting their best experience from dancing on a collegiate dance team.”

The team currently consists of 25 dancers, split into an A-team and B-team roster. Hook’em Bhangra meets three times a week for a total of nine hours of practice, planning and fundraising. Kaur hopes to keep the same number of dancers on the team as she expands across campus. 

But Hook’em Bhangra doesn’t just consist of dancers. Rather, the dance team is also supported by a board of executive members who run logistics and organization. 

“Money is a huge thing when it comes to competitions and costumes and different props that we use,” said Amay Bhatnagar, a electrical and computer engineering junior and logistics executive member. 

Riya Vastrad, a business sophomore and the team’s finance manager, echoed Bhatnagar’s goals. Vastrad’s primary goals this semester are to make sure that the team is supported, both financially and mentally.

The team places a special emphasis on the importance of commitment among its members, recognizing that the sport takes a lot of time and energy. 

“Rather than just the executive board doing something and the team doing something else, I think we’re all working together as a whole team to do things,” Kaur said.

Kaur said that Bhangra is a sport that helps any type of dancer enhance their movement abilities. She prioritizes learning the fundamentals of the dance over complicated choreography. 

“The fundamentals are more important because that’s the deep rooted stuff,” Kaur said. “I feel like once you get the fundamentals down, you can do any type of movement when it comes to Bhangra.” 

While Kaur recognized that some dance teams have a complicated dynamic of superiority and feelings of inferiority among their members, she emphasized that the sport and her team are a family beyond the wins of a competition or the different positions on the team. 

“When you are on a dance team, you spend so much time together,” Kaur said. “I think that the family component becomes super important because at the end of the day, these are the people that you ride or die with.”