Bhangra Boom

Last April, over 3,000 people assembled at the 15th annual Bhangra Blowout in Washington, DC, to witness America’s top college bhangra teams compete. Eager crowds watched as dancers wove through each other, combining rhythmic footwork with intricate arm motions, jumps, and squats in sharp synchronization. With each burst of energy or acrobatic display, the audience roared and applauded, rising to dance in the aisles against the commands of barking security guards.

Bhangra is the lively folk dance of Punjab, an agricultural region in the Indian northwest, where I have traveled to research the form. The basic step involves raising both arms in the air and alternately lifting the knees, while lightly hopping and bouncing the shoulders. With backs straight and chests proud, dancers swing their arms and clap their hands. The dhol, a large barrel drum heard in popular Punjabi music, accompanies the dance. At competitions, teams are judged on their choreography, technique, traditional style, synchronization, and ability to entertain. A complex eight-minute routine, for 8 to 16 dancers, may take an entire semester to choreograph and rehearse.

Team members are mostly South Asians who want to connect with their cultural heritage, but others are welcome too. On the Yale University team, we have had students from Egypt, Jamaica, and Trinidad. Colin Watson, now a third-year member, joined after seeing a performance. “The moves seemed really, really cool.
They broke out into this very energetic dance, doing stunts. It looked like they were having a lot of fun.” For Watson, an African-American student from New Jersey, the aerobic nature of bhangra is also appealing. “It really gets your blood pumping,” he says.

Sarah Kabay joined the Yale team two years ago while president of the university’s freestyle dance crew. For a campus event, she and Watson choreographed a fusion of bhangra and hip hop. “Bhangra competitions,” says Kabay, “become a celebration of the dynamism of an immigrant and transnational community.”

Although bhangra is performed mostly by nonprofessionals, the training is intense. At Yale, we did not practice jumping squats until after a month of normal squats. We do a lot of deep second-position pliés, so a physical trainer showed us how to turn out with our knees over our ankles. For Kabay, unison is especially difficult. “I’ve always done freestyle, but a bhangra team is a unified group and moves as one. Every second is mapped out.”

Recently, North American teams have drawn heavily from college groups in Punjab, which they consider traditional. Surmeet Singh, a co-captain at Virginia Commonwealth University, which placed first at Bhangra Blowout this year, revamped their choreography after seeing Punjab videos. “We wanted to make our team fully traditional, because in our eyes, what can be truer bhangra than bhangra from Punjab?” At the same time, he says, “We’re trying to develop our own style.”

Historically, the folk dances of Punjab have been segregated across gender lines, drawing only male participation. In North America, however, female and coed teams abound. As the female captain of an all-male team in Vancouver, Harkiran Kaur has faced challenges. “Earning the respect of the males on my team,” she says, “is a lot harder than choreographing a routine for them.” On other teams, she observes, “Girls are kept in the back a lot. You can tell the routine is made for the guys.”

Kamal Kaur Deol, captain of the George Washington University team, which hosts the annual Bhangra Blowout, adds, “Many people think girls bring down the dance’s energy, but with proper training, girls are just as good as the guys.”

“Bhangra is definitely a masculine dance,” says Sessie Sasikumar, leader of an all-female team in California. “However, women across North America have given bhangra their own unique flavor while executing moves and risky stunts with the same intensity as men.”

The mainstreaming of bhangra in popular media has caused some debate—for example, Sarina Jain’s “Masala Bhangra Workout” aerobics DVDs. Faizan Ghaznavi, captain of Anakh-e-Gabroo, an independent bhangra team from New York City, says, “Sarina Jain used bhangra as a marketing ploy by exoticizing the folk dance. What she and many other bhangra aerobics instructors teach does not resemble bhangra at all.” However, Gobind Singh, an MD/PhD student on the bhangra team at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, has worked with Jain on a training manual. “Indeed,” he says, “she has her own style. But if the purpose is to share our culture and enjoy the dance, I think she does a good job.”

Although some people have attempted to define bhangra proper, few can trace the origins of each modern move. While many still look to Punjab’s teams for inspiration, Surmeet Singh points out that bhangra in Punjab has changed dramatically over the years. “Traditional bhangra is an imaginary concept,” he says. “Folk dance is ever-evolving, and it will continue to change with time, culture, and the people who perform it.”

Govind Rangrass, a Fulbright Scholar to India, founded the Yale Bhangra Team and has served as a judge at bhangra competitions.

The Master Speaks

Harbhajan Singh, 79, sits in his home in Khokhar Fauji, a small village in Gurdaspur, Punjab. Behind him is a large collection of trophies, photographs, and dance props. Master Singh is acclaimed for his expert knowledge of Punjabi folk dances. He has led Punjab’s bhangra team for more than 27 years at India’s Republic Day Parade. “Communally, these dances were performed for hours and were slower-paced, not lightning fast like the college teams nowadays,” he says. Today, he explains, performers borrow from regional dances originally done at village fairs and celebrations. When these folk forms were combined and performed on the stage, their traditional actions became artificially fixed. “What the teams in Punjab perform now is not bhangra,” he claims.

Originally published in Dance Magazine, November 2008