It all began with a boy and a dream.

When Ronak Patel and his Indian garba dance team competed at George Washington University’s annual garba/raas competition two years ago, Patel knew Maryland students could do better. Two years of hard work and late nights later, Patel, a senior mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering double major, and a small group of devoted students have done what once seemed impossible: They have brought the dance competition to the campus.

Dance teams from seven major universities will gather in Tawes Theater Saturday night to twirl, jump and dazzle their way to victory in Maryland Masti, the university’s first ever garba/raas competition.

What exactly is garba? Imagine a traditional line dance, mix in some moves worthy of You Got Served, add some Indian flair and you should have a pretty good idea. A traditional folk dance that originated in western India during the religious festival Navratri, garbas are extremely popular in the Indian community as a chance to socialize and reconnect with the culture.

While garba performers form a circle and then dance and twirl in a rhythmic pattern, raas dancers also use dandiya (sticks) to form complex rhythms and movements. For competitions, dance teams modernize the garba, incorporating intricate moves, stunts and even special effects.

“I think the choreography is just amazing,” says senior neurobiology and physiology major Yasir Siddique, Maryland Masti’s public relations chairman. “Everyone’s in sync with each other. It looks like [the teams] put a lot of time and effort into it, and when it’s performed you can actually see crisp, clean movements and it’s actually really pleasing to the eye.”

The traditional garba dress is another plus, students say. The women wear colorful, ornate outfits called “chanya choli,” a full skirt, a short top and a scarf, and the men don the “kediya,” or flowing tops and huge, baggy pants worthy of MC Hammer.

Sure, “they’re parachute pants,” Patel admits, the group’s programming director and the one of the dance team’s choreographers. “But they’ve been around for centuries before MC Hammer.”

But garba is about more than just glitz, glamour and big pants.

“It’s a way to keep in touch with the culture as you’re growing up,” says senior physiology and neurobiology and criminology double major Jessica Harkhani, a dance team member and the group’s registration chairwoman. She says she wants this competition to help “awareness of Indian culture grow,” a sentiment Patel echoes after dancing for 15 years.

“It’s what I grew up with,” he says. “It’s my connection back to the Indian culture.”

And as one of the organizers of Maryland Masti, Patel hopes the event will help unify the campus’ Indian community and attract prospective students to the university.

“A big thing in the Indian culture is dance and dance competitions,” he says. “A lot of younger kids … base their decision on where to go to school by the Indian population at that school. And the Indian population is known through these types of shows. … This is just a way to get the name of the University of Maryland out there nationally.”

In fact, the event is surprisingly national, drawing teams from Virginia Tech, New York University, Cornell, Tufts, the University of Miami, Boston University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County – despite being scheduled the same day as rival GW’s major competition. To encourage fairness, the university’s garba team will perform an exhibition show but will not compete. Teams will be judged by area garba teachers and experts, people “older and wiser than us,” Patel says.

To make the visiting teams feel more comfortable, Maryland’s team will perform first, thus eliminating a dreaded time slot for competing teams, Siddique says. And Friday, Maryland Masti will host a “launch garba,” or large dance open to the public. The event will feature a live band for garba and raas purposes and a DJ to spin bhangra, another type of Indian music.

But after months of effort – Patel says he spent three to four hours a day preparing the show and an additional 20 hours a week choreographing the dance team’s performance – participating students say the work has been well worth it. Siddique, who is Pakistani, says his involvement in Maryland Masti has been eye-opening. He says all students, Indian or not, have something to gain from seeing the show and being “open-minded, seeing new things [and] seeing new cultures.”

“If this was three years ago, I probably wouldn’t be doing this,” Siddique says. “But now I open my eyes a little bit and get a feel for other cultures.”

Maryland Masti will host its launch garba Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the Reckord Armory. Tickets are $5 early and $7 at door for students, $6 early and $8 at door for non-students. The Maryland Masti competition will take place Saturday in Tawes Theater at 7 p.m. (doors open at 6 p.m). Tickets range from $13 to $18 for students and $15 to $20 for non-students. More information and links to purchase tickets can be found at www.marylandmasti.com.

Contact reporter Rebecca Wise at wisedbk@gmail.com.