During the fall of 2005, Priya Abraham, a sophomore at Union College, and Tina Kang,
a freshman, recognized the need for a cultural group that had a strong emphasis on
competition dance performance in the increasingly popular Bhangra genre. With years
of dancing experience behind them, Priya and Tina tapped into the student population
at Union College and extended the interest to their fellow students and found a great
deal of passion and excitement about the possibility of a competition bhangra team.
Debuting as "Union Bhangra Department" at the Winter Activities Fair, the bhangra
club had humble beginnings signing numerous members to a series of initial workshops.
After the workshops, Union College's first Bhangra Team was organized with 15 people
and a 5-person Executive Board. In the weeks that follows, Josh Shajan, the
Operations Manager, secured corporate sponsorship from local restaurants, Sitar and
Taj Mahal, and raised enough money to allow Amit Rajput, the Vice President (with the
help of his family), to obtain custom-made costumes from Amritsar in Punjab and have
them shipped to the United States. During all of this initial setup, the organization
managed to take a team trip to NYC to watch a bhangra show and execute weekly
practices towards the production of the first bhangra performance at the Spring
Shakti Show. On April 20, 2006, Union College granted club status and
THE BHANGRA UNION was born.