Vibe, Vanderbilt’s hip-hop dance crew, will perform as the opening act to tonight’s Commodore Quake concert.

The event will be the second Quake that Vibe has opened for, as the group has only been on the Vanderbilt campus for a year and a half.

Abby Mintz, then a freshman, and graduate student Sabrina Turner created Vibe in the spring of 2005. The two met at a Vanderbilt Dance program, where Turner was teaching a class.

“Here was Sabrina, a grad student, Christian and black, and then me, a white, Jewish freshman,” said Mintz, now a junior and co-president of the group. “We were complete opposites. But we came together and formed the organization.”

Since its inception, Mintz said diversity has been a prominent trait of the organization. The group is diverse in many ways, including age, religion, ethnicity and hometown, she said.

Vibe’s 21 members, ranging from freshmen to graduate students, come “from Miami to New Jersey to Oregon,” as Mintz put it, and represent more than 10 ethnic backgrounds.

“With an organization that is so small, to have so much diversity, I think it’s pretty outrageous,” Mintz said.

“Diversity affects everything we do,” said sophomore member Danny Neelan. “Not just racially, but geographically. People dance differently in the South than they do in the North and the West. Depending on who the choreographer is, the dance will look totally different,” he said.

Mintz also said that diversity is an important part of the group’s identity.

“The diversity of our organization bonds us because we all see the importance of integrating and embracing other cultures,” she said.

Neelan agreed, saying, “Dance is not just a form of entertainment but expression as well. Because we represent so many cultures, we are able to express many cultures as well.”

“Our diversity breaks stereotypes, like, ‘Oh, only black people can dance,’ but Vibe has white people who can dance and Asian people who can dance. We break stereotypes and color barriers; we show the world,” he said.

Diversity is so important that it affects other aspects of the group’s structure, such as member selection, said junior co-president Akua Hill.

“Because we’ve had diversity in the past, it’s important to maintain our high level of diversity when we consider new members,” she said. “We’re not only looking for technique and enthusiasm but also to create a diverse group. Besides, a diverse organization means diverse friends.”

“We think that, for example, if Vibe was made up of all African-American dancers, there might not be as much diversity,” Neelan said. “By looking for diversity in our members, we get a variety of dance backgrounds and life experiences.”

In fact, Vibe even considers race integration when the group makes its formations for performances, Mintz said.

“We definitely consider race when we make our formations,” she said. “You’ll never see two or three black dancers or white dancers in a row.”

Hill agreed, saying, “We like to make up formations that are pleasing to the audience. Racially, it’s as basic as a color thing. It’s nice to see a mix of colors, of brown and white.”

Members of Vibe also come from differing dance backgrounds.

“Vibe is really good about maintaining a high level of quality, but we are just as much about enthusiasm and individual flavor as we are about technique and experience,” Hill said.

“We definitely have several members who didn’t have dance experience prior to college,” Mintz said.

However, the captains said they believed that even this diversity works to their advantage, as it gives each member a unique style and technique.

“We are united by the routine, but really we are all doing the same thing in a different way,” Hill said.

Vibe performs at events ranging from basketball games to Dance Marathon to tonight’s Commodore Quake.

“We got good feedback from last year’s Quake,” Mintz said. “The campus now knows us and knows what to expect. Now we want to raise the bar.”

The routine prepared for tonight’s concert features the work of 10 different student choreographers and is longer than the group is used to.

“We’re using all new music, songs that you hear now on the radio and in the clubs,” Mintz said. “We really want to pump everyone up and get them excited for Ludacris, Common and Shareefa.”