It's crunch time for the ODU Bhangra Maniacs

Gaurav Basu, center, smiles as fellow Bhangra Maniacs Harbi Dhanjal, left, and Pulkit Gulati affix his turban for their first costumed practice. (Bill Manley/Special to The Virginian-Pilot)

By JANETTE RODRIGUES
The Virginian-Pilot

NORFOLK - In an Old Dominion University rehearsal studio, students throw their arms up, shake their shoulders and then quick step on the balls of their feet across the room to a driving, high-bass drum beat.

Sweat is pouring down their foreheads, a male dancer loses his dark blue turban during a turn, and earrings need adjusting when they finish practicing the energetic, traditional Punjabi folk dance called bhangra.

"It's like doing 30 minutes on a treadmill, on incline, going 6 mph," Gaurav Basu, 27, an ODU doctoral student, said earlier this week.

With less than two weeks of practice under their belts, it's crunch time for the ODU Bhangra Maniacs. The state's newest team is preparing to compete in Hampton Roads' first collegiate bhangra dance competition at 2:30 p.m. Sunday during the inaugural Taste of India celebration at the Ted Constant Convocation Center.

Between the recent opening of the region's first Sikh temple, the new festival and the bhangra competition, the local South Asian community is coming into its own.

Collegiate bhangra competitions around the country attract thousands of spectators to big city venues such as Constitution Hall in Washington. Audiences come to see dancers in colorful costumes do high-energy footwork in sync and cheerleading-style, acrobatic stunts to the Punjabi party music also called bhangra.

"It's the beat," said Basu. "It's like hip-hop."

"There's so much energy in the music that we forget we're tired," said Pooja Bais, 22, an ODU graduate student who is trained in classical Indian dance but not bhangra.

The 4/4-beat is flavored with the traditional sounds of the dholak drum, string instruments and a bhangra singer, fiercely singing in Punjabi about things like love, heroes, marriage and ethnic pride. Some historians speculate that bhangra has been making heads bob, feet move and hips shake since the time of Alexander the Great, according to the Punjab Online Web site.

Benninder "Binny" Dhanjal, 27, an ODU graduate student who helped organize the team, said the exuberant dance began as a way to celebrate the harvest.

Over the centuries, bhangra moved out of the Punjab, becoming the music that South Asians get up and dance to at weddings and parties. It's become a unifying force among the South Asian diaspora in North America and Europe.

Everyone, the ODU students say, knows bhangra dance steps.

No one team member is acting as choreographer. Instead, everyone is chipping in with ideas, watching a lot of bhangra music videos for steps.

"But we are trying to keep it as traditional as possible and not copy other routines," Dhanjal said.

The dance teams will be judged on everything from the traditional aspects of the dance and technicality to style and overall presentation. There's traditional, pop and hip-hop fusions and Bollywood styles of bhangra.

When the ODU Bhangra Maniacs take the stage Sunday in sky-blue tunics, flowing navy-blue pants and sarong-like garments accented with gold trim, they will join the growing number of South Asian students - foreign and native born - who are creating a cultural identity all their own.

The India-born parents of American students have embraced the collegiate bhangra scene, according to Vinod Agarwal, an ODU professor and chairman of the Taste of India organizing committee.

The parents want their children to assimilate but not to forget where they came from and their culture.

"You want to keep some ethnic identity," he said a few days after the practice. "It is a pride that we want our kids to have that they are different, yet, not different."

Staff writer Gillian Gaynair contributed to this report.