With such a diverse student population, the University welcomes a wide array of talents. Among this population are 16 students who make up U.Va. Di Shaan -- the University's co-ed Bhangra dance team.
Bhangra, an approximately 400-year-old dance that originates from the northern Indian state Punjab, "combines a lot of graceful moves along with fast-paced, high-energy dance moves," said Ashish Jain, a fourth-year College student and captain of the team.
The dance itself was traditionally performed in Punjab as a celebration of the harvest, according to second-year College student and team member Gurpreet Rangi. When the dance first started to gain popularity in the U.S., hip-hop music would sometimes be mixed in with the Indian music, Rangi said, but the new trend is leaning back toward tradition.
"We try to incorporate as much of the traditional dance as possible into our routines," Jain said.
There are various types of Bhangra dance, Rangi said, depending on what beat is played on the traditional instrument of the dance, called a Dhol. For some performances, the team will perform live with a Dhol player and singer rather than previously recorded music.
U.Va. Di Shaan has been a group at the University for about five years, Jain said. The team performs and competes on a national level. With past competitions in cities such as Miami, Buffalo, New York, Detroit and Washington, travel is a large component of the team.
"I enjoy the dancing part of it as well as traveling to places," Rangi said.
Since traveling to competitions exposes the team to other groups, Rangi said she has learned a lot more about Bhangra by watching other teams perform.
Competition routines, Jain said, are performed to music compiled and mixed by the team. Routines are also choreographed by team members as a collective effort.
The team practices as much as 15 to 16 hours per week, "to make everything look as clean as possible before a competition," Jain said.
"We have a lot of good individual dancers, but the hardest part is synchronization," Rangi said. "Everybody can learn the moves, but to make it look good on stage, we have to synchronize."
To make a routine work on stage, everyone has to be in sync for every step. The nature of any team teaches its members "a lot about compromise, because not everybody has the same opinion," Rangi said.
There is at least one common thread among the members of U.Va. Di Shaan -- a love of dance.
"We all love dancing [and] being on stage," Jain said. The team provides the opportunity for members "to express our desire to dance and have fun while performing."
For those without former experience in Bhangra, it's usually "hard to catch the footwork at first," Rangi said. "As long as you're willing to learn, it's just like any other dance -- I think anybody can learn it."
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