Mar 28, 2017
New Delhi: An Indian-American bhangra dancing group is getting lots of love on social media for its lively dance performance at a professional basketball game. Bhangra Empire took centre stage at the halftime show during an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and the Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday night. The 32 dancers - 16 women and 16 men - brought down the house with a nearly 5-minute long performance at Oakland, California's enormous Oracle Arena. A video of Bhangra Empire's dance performance has been viewed over 200,000 times in less than 24 hours since being posted on Facebook by NBA India. It has collected nearly 9,000 'reactions' and been shared close to 4,000 times. The NBA is currently celebrating a series of "Bollywood nights" at basketball games across the league. Established in 2006, Bhangra Empire is a dance troupe based in California's Bay Area. The troupe consists of current college students as well as recent graduates who say their mission is "to bring bhangra to the mainstream, one performance at a time." In 2009, Bhangra Empire even performed at a White House State Dinner, hosted by then US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama in honour of then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.