It's late on a Thursday night in a South Halls basement, but more than a dozen students are just getting the evening started.

Within 15 minutes, the members of the Penn State Raas Team are out on the floor rehearsing their eight-minute show, jumping, running into different formations, and twirling sticks.

The dance style is called Raas, and it originated in the Indian state of Gujarat centuries ago.

The traditional dance uses dhandias, or small sticks that dancers spin and hit against their partners' set.

"Spin those sticks higher," Mohit Chaudhary (junior-electrical engineering) said. "Stick out your arms more when you spin them."

It may have been only the third week of the semester, but the Raas dancers already had more on their minds than new classes. The team had recently won a dance competition, which was a great surprise to several members.

"After they announced second and third [place], we just gave up," Sandhya Kambhampati (senior-biobehavioral health) said. "We were holding hands, and after we heard that we all let go. But then we heard them announce [our first place win]. We were all crying. It was very intense."

The win means the spring will be filled with competitions at the higher regional level.

The upcoming New Jersey and New York City events mean more practice, choreographer Jonathan Noronha (senior-film and media studies) said.

"Other teams saw our piece [at the last competition]," Noronha said. "So we're trying to tweak it."

This is his first year choreographing for the team. Noronha has more of a hip-hop background than an Indian music one, so putting together a routine required hours of online and other video research, he said.

His goal is to include historical events and sacred ideas into the movements. Despite the fun, Raas practices can be exhausting Kambhampati said.

"It's very tiring," she said. "You come home at midnight, and you have the exercise rush kick in. We end practice by running [the routine] all the way through. Once you've gone through the dance two or three times, you're just dead."

The dance requires a lot of energy, especially because of the soundtrack.

"We use a lot of traditional music," Kambhampati said. "We picked music that was fast, so it's more enjoyable. A lot of other groups [at the competition] picked slow music, so it wasn't as much fun to watch."

One thing that unites the team is their Indian heritage, and it is a learning experience for the students.

"There's a thing about Raas," Noronha said. "There's much more tradition. It's already developed. It taught me about my culture, because in India, there are just so many states and cultures. Where I'm from they don't have [Raas], so it lets me learn. It's like if you're from New York, you're not going to know much about Miami's culture."