The UCLA Bhangra Team was founded as a formal student organization in 1998 to promote cultural unification through dance and other various activities in the community. By partaking in educational and cultural events throughout the state of California, the UCLA Bhangra team strives to inform others about Indian American heritage. The friendly atmosphere of the UCLA Bhangra Team provides a basis of camaraderie and a family-like environment to its members. The sharing of culture, and memorable times in the past years is what binds together the members of the UCLA Bhangra Team.

And in the past three years, the UCLA Bhangra Team has distinguished itself as one of the best bhangra teams in all of California. In 1998, the UCLA Bhangra Team beat their cross-town rivals, USC, as well as two other Southland colleges in Dhoom Dhamaka, a competition held at USC. In 1999, the UCLA Bhangra Team took home first place in the annual Neema Sari Dance Contest, held at Jordan High School. Furthermore, the UCLA Bhangra Team went on to win first place at the first-ever Bruin Bhangra competition, defeating schools from as north as UC Berkeley and as down south as UC San Diego.

Last year, the UCLA Bhangra Team participated in Stanford's Bhangra by the Bay, a bhangra competition in which nine colleges and universities from all over the state of California, with one team competing all the way from Texas. There, the UCLA Bhangra Team took home second place. Finally, in April of 2000, the the UCLA Bhangra Team held its reign as the champions of Westwood, by taking home 1st place at Bruin Bhangra 2000.

However, bhangra competitions are not the only place you will see the UCLA Bhangra Team in action. Last year, the team made a special guest appearance as the opening act at a concert to promote a new musical group from the East Coast, "Penn Masala." The show generated an attendance of about 1,500 people and was sold out. In addition, the UCLA Bhangra team has been repeatedly asked to perform at a number of private performances, including the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the national South Asian Student Alliance Conference entertaining an audience of 2000, and the Indian Megastars Concert, which features major Hindi Film actors and actresses. Trying to spread the the Indian culture as well as bhangra, the UCLA Bhangra Team performed two assemblies at Stanford Elementary School in Garden Grove, where the Team taught students from kindergarten to sixth grade about college life, North India, and bhangra. By the end of the school day, little voices were screaming "Oh, Chak De!" throughout the halls of Stanford Elementary. Moreover, The UCLA Bhangra Team has been asked to perform at the Children's Festival 2001 this coming May. The UCLA Bhangra Team was also the closing act of the UCLA Indian Student Union's Annual Culture Show in Royce Hall.

Already, the UCLA Bhangra Team has proudly brought back six trophies from all over the state of California with the four letters UCLA engraved on each one. This shows who the Bhangra Team is and what it stands for: a competitive team representing UCLA and all of Westwood.