Meet the UCLA athlete bringing Bollywood dance to college gymnastics
By
Rebecca Tauber
April 16, 2026 6:00 am EDT
Tiana Sumanasekera walks onto the floor, face serious. She takes a knee and takes a breath, leans back and lifts one arm in the air.
Then, over the cheers of her UCLA teammates, you can just about hear it — the unmistakable sound of Bollywood.
Sumanasekera twists her wrists, leans forward and winks at the crowd.
Then, she begins.
Watching college gymnastics today provides an education in music and dance. Athletes perform to Britney Spears and Beyoncé, the “Succession” theme song, Kendrick Lamar and Taylor Swift. Dance styles range widely.
But not many athletes are performing to Bollywood classics. And not many are South Asian — specifically Sri Lankan, where Sumanasekera’s parents grew up before moving to California in their 20s.
Mohini Bhardwaj — who also competed for UCLA — was the first Indian-American gymnast to medal at the Olympics, winning silver for the U.S. in 2004. Sumanasekera is only the second South Asian gymnast to approach that level. She was a 2024 Olympic alternate and a Pan American Games and Pan American Championships gold medalist, making her the first person of Sri Lankan descent to represent the United States at that level in gymnastics.
“That was huge for me, and it was something that I took great pride in,” Sumanasekera said in an interview with
The Athletic ahead of the NCAA championships, in which the No. 4 Bruins will compete Thursday.
Sumanasekera has incorporated South Asian music and dance into her floor routines throughout her elite career, many of which she choreographed herself. So when she committed to UCLA, a school known for its creative dance and strong performance on floor, she knew she wanted to create a Bollywood floor routine.
“It’s one story just having a similar last name or looking the same, but for (a gymnast) to actually embody that through dance, it takes it to a next level,” Sumanasekera said.
Sumanasekera’s vision was a perfect match for choreographer, dancer and UCLA associate head coach BJ Das, who works with the athletes on their floor routines. Das’ father was born and raised in India, but Das had never coached a fellow South Asian athlete before.
For Sumanasekera and Das, the tumbling — the dizzying flips and twists — was the easy part. Fresh off the 2025 elite season, Sumanasekera already knew nearly all the gymnastics skills featured in her college routine.
The hard part was narrowing down the music from Bollywood’s massive canon. One challenge was finding songs that worked without the words, which are not allowed in gymnastics routines. Das wanted to make sure the music sounded distinctively South Asian, even without lyrics.
“I wanted to bring a little more edge to it and use different eras of Bollywood films and music,” Das said. “We both did a lot of research, I watched some different scenes from movies, and I actually took one song that was from a flash mob I did at one of my cousins’ weddings.”
The ultimate mix spans decades, beginning with “Bombay Theme” by A.R. Rahman from the 1995 movie “Bombay,” a romantic drama set during the Bombay riots, music Das called “a bit more traditional.” Next comes “Tujhe Dekha Toh,” composed by the duo Jatin-Lalit for the 1995 film “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge,” a romantic musical about a British Indian couple who meet on a backpacking trip across Europe.
The routine then moves to a more hip-hop style with “Sheila Ki Jawani” by the pair Vishal-Shekhar, an iconic contemporary hit from the 2010 heist comedy “Tees Maar Khan.” The routine ends with “Dola Re Dola” by Ismail Darbar and Monty Sharma, from the 2002 movie “Devdas,” a period romance set in the early 1900s.
Das described the routine as having a “Bollywood princess theme, very royalty, superstar diva type of vibe,” in part a reference to Sumanasekera’s nickname, “Princess T.”
The pair chose songs Bollywood fans would recognize. Though Sumanasekera hadn’t seen many of the movies before creating the routine, her mother and aunt immediately got the references. Some of the dance sequences come directly from the movies referenced in the routine.
“We want to make sure that people who are fans of the style really feel that we’re representing it,” Das said.
Das and Sumanasekera spent the months leading up to the start of the season learning South Asian choreography. Neither had formally studied the dance style before.
“I’ve always wanted to, so this is really exciting,” Das said. “A lot of women in India study that style for years. I have family members who have spent their whole childhood studying that style of dance.”
The pair spent time learning precise hand and wrist positions typical of the style. Sumanasekera also worked on moving her eyes in conjunction with her hands, another important part of South Asian dance. Many of the hand positions are inspired by bharatanatyam, a type of Indian classical dance, with the final routine mixing traditional styles with contemporary Bollywood culture.
“It’s a very rich and distinctive culture that pulls from Western references but also has a lot of traditional Indian dance, so Bollywood is kind of a combination of styles, traditional Indian dance mixed with hip-hop and like jazz elements,” Das said.
Of the four events in women’s gymnastics — vault, bars, balance beam and floor — floor is the one known for artistic performance. But gymnasts are also expected to incorporate dance on beam, albeit without music, typically with the arms and upper body. So Sumanasekera brought some of her Bollywood moves into her beam routine as well. Nestled between flips and leaps on the narrow beam, she moves her shoulders, palms pressed together, reminiscent of her floor performance.
The routines have worked. In her first college season, Sumanasekera notched two season highs on beam of 9.95 — with college scoring out of 10 — and one season high on floor of 9.95. UCLA entered the postseason ranked fourth in the country, with Sumanasekera regularly competing in the all-around for the Bruins.
Sumanasekera’s floor prowess was crucial for the Bruins in early April, when UCLA made the NCAA regional final in Corvallis, Ore. In a close competition between No. 4 UCLA, No. 5 Alabama, No. 12 Utah and No. 13 Minnesota, the Bruins entered the final rotation tied with Minnesota, both behind Utah by 0.05. Only the top two teams would advance to nationals.
UCLA finished the competition on floor. One foot out of bounds or a single wonky leap could mean the difference between a ticket to Fort Worth, Texas, for the championship, and a trip home to Los Angeles to end the season.
Sumanasekera took the floor third to last, on the heels of a 9.875 and two 9.9s from her teammates. Well positioned, but far from guaranteed.
“Tujhe Dekha To Yeh Jana” began, and Sumanasekera took off. She landed her first pass — a double layout — but for a moment it looked like she might have gone too far. An inch more, and she would have gone out of bounds. But Sumanasekera didn’t have to look behind her to know not to put her heel down,
just staying in bounds and avoiding a 0.1 deduction.
She scored 9.925 — UCLA’s second-highest score of the rotation, behind Jordan Chiles’ perfect 10 — helping the Bruins secure a 0.1 lead over Minnesota and 0.225 lead over Utah, sending UCLA to nationals.
College gymnastics is her main focus in April, but once the NCAA season wraps and the school year ends, Sumanasekera plans to continue training at the elite level.
Walking around campus, Sumanasekera often gets recognized by fellow students and Bruins fans who tell her how much they love her performance on floor.
But after regionals, Sumanasekera’s routine traveled further, going viral in South Asia. In the past few weeks, she has heard from fans, including in Sri Lanka, about what it means to see an athlete representing South Asian culture at her level.
“I’ve been doing these routines for a long time, and to be able to actually reach that side and be able to show and express who I am and my authentic self through my floor routine, and for it to get recognition and be able to inspire others is huge for me,” Sumanasekera said.
“It’s really an incredible feeling.”
www.nytimes.com
