Tonight students will dance the salsa and Irish flip jig -- at the same venue.

Members of the Penn State International Dance Ensemble (PSIDE) will perform a variety show at the Tall Shiva Hookah Lounge, 224 W. College Ave. The event will involve cultural dance numbers and student musical and artistic performances to benefit their organization and the AIDS Project.

"It's a very informal show; people can be smoking hookah and just hanging out," Puja Gandhi (senior-marketing), director of PSIDE, said.

She said there will be eight or nine dances that are samples from the ensemble's fall recital and future spring performances. In between dances, students will sing, play the drums and read poetry.

"A lot of the performances will be PSIDE members with other talents, and we pretty much branched out to our friends who have preformed in the past and asked to help out with the fundraiser," Gandhi said.

PSIDE Secretary Rebecca Patterson (sophomore-mechanical engineering) said she will participate in a few cultural dances at the Hookah Lounge.

"I'm in a couple dances -- an Irish dance, an Indian dance called Bhangra and a Filipino dance called binasuan," she said.

Patterson said this is PSIDE's second year holding this fundraiser at the Hookah Lounge.

"We do it as fundraiser to benefit ourselves and donate another portion to a charity," she said.

Last year, PSIDE donated a portion of its proceeds to the AIDS Project.

"I think overall we ended up raising over $400. We get all the proceeds, and we gave 10 or 15 percent to the AIDS Project, and this year we want to give a little bit more," Gandhi said. "Last year, one of our members was really active with the AIDS Project. We picked that organization and stuck to it. It kind of seems to fit with us; I don't know why. It's kind of a cause we all wanted to support."

Ashlee McGrath (sophomore-human development and family studies) is a first-year member of PSIDE and will participate in the show, too.

"We're going to be doing ballet dancing," she said. "We might be doing a tap dance, possibly a swing dance. We have a couple people doing an Irish flip jig. I'm definitely dancing in two ballet numbers, and I may be dancing in a tap."

McGrath will also perform something other than dance.

"I'm singing a song by one of my favorite bands called Eisley, and the song is called 'Just Like We Do,' " she said. "It's just a little acoustic number."

A few dance numbers will feature first-year PSIDE member Amanda Tylka (freshman-division of undergraduate studies).

"I'll be performing two ballet dances, and hopefully, I'll also be singing a duet with another member," she said.

Tylka said she danced in high school and wanted to continue in college, so she auditioned for PSIDE with a friend. "We ended up loving it because there are so many different styles of dancing that I would have never learned if I hadn't joined," she said.

Amber Rubal (freshman-chemistry) has danced for 16 years and joined the ensemble this year. "You don't get to learn these dances anywhere else -- it's a once in a lifetime thing," she said.