Five student dance groups will be surrounded by audience members on all four sides of the stage at 7 tonight as they compete to be KU’s Best Dance Crew.

Grace Sha, Student Union Activites cultural arts coordinator, organized the event and audience members will decide which group will win the grand prize of $500.

“The groups have to have a minimum of four people and there’s no maximum,” Sha, Derby junior, said. “The only challenge they have is to put on a show that will be performed toward all four edges of the stage so all the audience is included.”

The event is aimed at giving cultural groups on campus an opportunity to showcase the different types of dances from their culture. Groups will perform hip-hop, break dancing, classical Indian and Asian styles of dances.

“We wanted the cultural groups to come do their dances all together and show them to different audiences who may not see them usually,” Sha said.

Roya Ibrahimi, Shawnee freshman, is a member of Jeeva, an Indian dance group on campus that will perform tonight.

“We’ll be doing classical Indian dancing, hip-hop and a kind of a step dance where we have bells on our feet so when we stomp the floor we make a rhythm,” Ibrahimi said.

Dance groups had the opportunity to sign up starting in November and ending Wednesday — which one group took full advantage of.

Julian French, Shawnee senior, said his urban hip-hop group signed up at the last minute yesterday.

“I think we’re going to do pretty decent and as long as we can perform well to our standards, that’ll be enough satisfaction for me,” French said.

Lauren Winchester, Olathe sophomore, is co-director of the morale committee for KU Dance Marathon in April and will be dancing with nine other members of the committee tonight. If her group wins the grand prize they will donate the money to Children’s Miracle Network.

“None of us are great dancers but I think our dance is pretty fun,” Winchester said. “The coolest thing would be to win because that would be $500 we could put toward Children’s Mercy.”

Sha said that she hoped the competition would be an annual event and that more people would be involved next time.

“We didn’t think of it so much as a serious dance competition as much as a way for people to show off their particular style,” Sha said. “But I think some groups are taking it seriously so I’m fairly certain that we’re going to get some impressive performances.”

— Edited by Heather Melanson