Situating bhangra dance: a critical introduction

Abstract

Punjabi bhangra has been a recurrent topic of discussion within the studies of South Asian identity and vernacular culture since the 1980s. Such discussions, however, have suffered due to lack of published information on bhangra's cultural and historical contexts. Consequently, discussants have had to rely upon information available from recent popular media and casual participants. Popular narratives tend to oversimplify bhangra as being or deriving from ‘Punjab's traditional folk dance,’ often without a clear sense of what constitutes ‘folk dance’ in this context or the relationship between such a dance and the particular bhangra with which one may be familiar. The resultant picture of contemporary bhangra as the quintessential Punjabi harvest dance, even if ‘modernized,’ is inadequate to interpret the acts of performers and audiences of what are, in fact, several dynamic phenomena. There is a danger of characterizing bhangra as a too-uniformly understood aspect of Punjabi heritage, and of reducing its performances to mere displays of Punjabi identity, if the past and present practical needs, aesthetic decisions, and situational intentions of participants are not registered. Intended to offer such a contextual framework, this article provides a social history of bhangra dance, in three theatres: Western Punjab before 1947, Eastern Punjab after the Partition, and the Punjabi Diaspora since the late twentieth century. Particular attention is paid to the individuals who have shaped the development and their circumstantial motivations.

Keywords:

• culture
• western Punjab
• eastern Punjab
• Diaspora
• identity

Acknowledgements

The many contributors to the information in this article are, regrettably, too numerous to name. However, here I must specifically remember my guru, Ustad Garib Dass, who first exposed me to the Indian system of bhangra and dhol. I thank two anonymous reviewers of SAHC for their helpful critiques and suggestions. Finally, this article owes a debt of gratitude to Jim Dhanoa, who provided feedback and additional information. The article is dedicated to the late Gurdev Singh Dhanda (d. 2012), credited as the first person to bring dhol to and among the first bhangra dancers in America.

Notes

1. Schreffler, “Migration Shaping Media.”

2. The musicological and choreological details of each bhangra phenomenon, by which they will also be distinguished, are not the emphases here, rather they are provided where illustrative.

3. See for example: Gopinath, “Bombay, U.K., Yuba City”; and Dudrah, “Drum ‘n’ Dhol.”

4. See for example the broad use of bhangra in Roy, Bhangra Moves.

5. For example: Banerji and Baumann, “Bhangra 1984-8”; Chacko and Menon, “Longings and Belongings”; and Maira, “Identity Dub.”

6. See for example: Tandon, Punjabi Century, 58; and Gargi and M.K., “Punjab.”

7. Studies of performative forms in Punjabi folklore, a field that began to develop in the mid-twentieth century, have been largely focused on folk songs. See, Gibb Schreffler, “Vernacular Music and Dance,” 198. However, Bhangra dance did also make it into at least one general, non-Punjabi work on dance, Bhavnavi, The Dance in India, 183 (plate 94).

8. See: Jugindar Singh, “Lok Nāch”; Daler, Panjābī Lok-Nāch; and Bedi, Panjāb dī Lokdhārā.

9. See: Banerji, “Ghazals to Bhangra”; Banerji and Baumann, “Bhangra 1984-8”; and Baumann, “The Re-invention of Bhangra.”

10. See for example: Manuel, “Music as Symbol,” 235–6; and Slobin, “Micromusics of the West,” 44.

11. Nahar Singh, Panjābī Lok-Nāch.

12. The work is written in a register of the language that uses many sophisticated words (some are not even in standard dictionaries), academic jargon, and with Sanskrit-based vocabulary that would not be used in everyday speech and which would not likely be understood by many people who have not gone to college in Punjab or read academic writing in Punjabi.

13. Dhillon, Folk Dances of Punjab.

14. In an English piece from London's Bazaar, Summer 1987 (‘How Not to Dance Bhangra’), Amarjit Chandan cites a testimony to the contrary. Parbinder Singh, a captain of bhangra teams at Republic Day in the 1970s, is stated to have said he was ashamed of the dance he had performed, that it was ‘not at all a Punjabi folk dance,’ and that it should have been called something other than ‘bhangra.’ (Article copy obtained through courtesy of the author.)

15. Schreffler, “Out of the Dhol Drums.”

16. Sonja Wolter of Berlin wrote a 2002 Master's thesis on bhangra dance after seven weeks’ fieldwork in Punjab; Wolter and I were in communication in 2001, however I am unable to locate her finished work for citation. Laura Leante's fieldwork on bhangra dance in Punjab was done in establishing background to her excellent discussions of Punjabi music and identity, e.g. Leante, “Urban Myth.”

17. Ballantyne, “Displacement, Diaspora, and Difference.”

18. Roy, Bhangra Moves.

19. One of the early Internet discussion threads to begin this discourse was on the website Punjabi Network, entitled ‘Bhangra – Can we call bhangra in its present form our traditional folk dance?’ Its primary discussants from mid-2001 included Tejinder Singh (dancer with Surrey India Arts Club), Amit Aulakh (college student dancer at George Washington University), Teginder Singh Dhanoa (Punjabi Lok Virsa, Bay Area), Sonja Wolter, and myself.

20. This article is drawn from research on Punjabi music and dance since 1999. Fieldwork comprised several stays, stretching for periods of months to a year in India (2000, 2001, 2004–2005, 2006) and shorter trips to Punjabi communities in Pakistan (2001, 2006), England (2009), Canada (British Columbia, 2009, 2010, 2011), and the US (California, 1999–2003, 2007).

21. In all probability, it was the website PunjabOnline.Com (1996-pres.) that most caused the spread of the ‘common wisdom’ on the Internet that bhangra dance originated in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. The site contains a widely plagiarized article, ‘Bhangra History,’ written by Clint Kelly and Jasjeet Thind (formerly of the Cornell Bhangra Club), which states without evidence that bhangra existed ‘about five hundred years ago.’ Accessed July 27, 2012. http://www.punjabonline.com/servlet/library.history?Action=Bhangra. See for example the reproduction of this common wisdom in: Singh, “Sikh Folklore,” 551.

22. Guru Ram Das (1570s) made reference to a dance called ghūmar (Guru Granth Sahib, 698).

23. Tucker, Report of the Settlement, 75.

24. Ridgway, Pathans, 71.

25. Akbar, “North West Frontier Province,” 791.

26. See Schreffler, “It's Our Culture.”

27. Punjab Settlement and Census Service Office, Gazetteer of the Rawalpindi District, 90.

28. Punjab Government, Attock District, 144.

29. Religious Tract Society, The Sunday at Home, 415. Participants at the mela are said to hail from nearby villages in the Sialkot district, but it is unclear whether the event was held at the Sialkot Mission or elsewhere.

30. Curiously, both of the alternate spellings lack the retroflex ‘’ used in today's pronunciation, suggesting that the term may have been unfamiliar or not standardized at that point.

31. Maya Singh, The Panjabi Dictionary, 123.

32. Gazetteer of the Sialkot District, 71.

33. Nahar Singh, Panjābī Lok-Nāch, map.

34. Jugindar Singh, “Lok Nāch,” 121.

35. Personal communication, February 23, 2005.

36. This estimated area would make up about 6.6% of the total area of the current states of Punjab (Pakistan and India) combined.

37. Nahar Singh, Panjābī Lok-Nāch, 63.

38. Ibid., map.

39. Brard, East of Indus, 312.

40. Harbhajan Singh, personal communication, February 23, 2005. According to Sajjan Singh Pandher, who danced bhangra as a teenager before Partition, these nightly sessions began ‘15 days’ before Visakhi (in unpublished video interview with Teginder and Surinder Dhanoa, February 15, 2006).

41. Harbhajan Singh, personal communication, February 23, 2005.

42. A sense of evening bhangra sessions as rehearsals comes from the statements of Amar Singh of Bhinder Nagar (in unpublished video interview with Teginder and Surinder Dhanoa, February 19, 2006).

43. Rose, A Glossary, 920.

44. Performed by Garib Dass, personal communication, May 2003. The currency of this verse in the traditional era, learned by Garib Dass through oral transmission, is corroborated by its mention in the Pakistani publication, “Punjabi Folk-Songs,” 36.

45. Saini, The Social and Economic History, 138.

46. Personal communication, February 23, 2005.

47. See for example: Randhawa, Out of the Ashes, 199.

48. This version of the rhythm, which I learned from Garib Dass, was said by him to be characteristic of the ‘old’ bhangra dance. It has more treble strokes and is performed at a slower tempo than the bhangā rhythm most often played nowadays for the folkloric dance. The understood reason for this is that it was played for long stretches of dance and the dancers would become too tired if it were too fast. On the other hand, the bhangā rhythm that is played in folkloric bhangra is employed as an exact double-time of the kahirvā rhythm, to display brief, very fast actions.

49. Due to some incidental historical developments, this rhythm is now often called lu ī by drummers in India and called chāl in the Diaspora. However, it should not be confused with the customary rhythm of the Punjabi dance known as lu ī.

50. Personal communication, February 23, 2005.

51. Ibid.

52. The ultimate fate of bhangra in Pakistan after Partition is a topic requiring further research. Nevertheless, Pakistani informants in 2001 and 2006 indicated to me no significant attempts to perpetuate a bhangra practice there. For example, an instrument maker hailing from Wazirabad claimed (July 2001) that bhangra had not been practiced in his town, citing the reason that the town had become ‘advanced.’

53. Shay, Choreographic Politics, 1–2.

54. Dhillon, “Panjāb de Lok Nāchā,” 20.

55. Avtar Singh Deepak, February, 17, 2006 (in unreleased video interview with Teginder and Surinder Dhanoa).

56. Ibid. In a later interview, PEPSU troupe member Balbir Sekhon said the Bhadson event took place in 1952 (unreleased video by Teginder and Surinder Dhanoa, February 23, 2006).

57. Dalip Singh Pannu (b. 1923), February 14, 2006 (in unreleased video interview by Teginder and Surinder Dhanoa).

58. PEPSU existed from 1949 until merging with the state of Punjab in 1956. See: Gursharan Singh, History of PEPSU.

59. Balbir Singh Sekhon, February 23, 2006 (in unreleased video interview by Teginder and Surinder Dhanoa).

60. Ibid.

61. See ‘modernist reformism’ of Turino. ‘[R]eformism typically objectifies, recontextualizes, and alters indigenous forms for emblematic purposes in the light of cosmopolitan dispositions and social context and programmes … Through this process, diverse local forms are incorporated and homogenized within the same cosmopolitan frame while maintaining surface (emblematic) differences in relation to the cosmopolitan’ (Turino, Nationalists, 16).

62. The exact source of this citation could not be determined. Scans of the pages are presented on the Mahrok clan website, Accessed October 10, 2009. www.mahroks.co.uk

63. Nahar Singh, Panjābī Lok-Nāch, 63.

64. Balbir Singh Sekhon, February 23, 2006 (in unreleased video interview by Teginder and Surinder Dhanoa).

65. For details on the Bazigar (Goaar) people, see: Schreffler, “The Bazigar (Goaar) People,” 217–50.

66. Pammi Bai, who studied with the late Bhana Ram, estimates the time was 1950 (Pammi Bai, “holī Bhānā Rām,” Panjabi Tribune, November 16, 2008, Magazine section, 1); however the patriarch Ram Singh's date of death, January 1949, suggests 1948 may be a more precise estimate.

67. Bahadur Singh, personal communication, April 25, 2005.

68. Ibid.

69. Dhillon, “Panjāb de Lok Nāchā,” 116. Avtar Singh Deepak stated that it was Gurbachan who applied the name; teammate Balbir Sekhon stated that the rationale was due to a couple of bhangra actions being in the mix, and that the name was arrived at after some deliberation (in unreleased video interviews with Teginder and Surinder Dhanoa, February 17 and 23, 2006).

70. Tandon, Punjabi Century, 58.

71. The dance sequence featured all women dancers and the instruments algoze, chimṭā, and bughdū.

72. In Hindi: Jagte Raho, 1956; Naya Daur, 1957; Mirza Sahiban, 1957. In Punjabi: Jagga Daku, 1959 (without Manohar Deepak); Khedan de Din Char, 1962 (with Manohar Deepak, but without others). As might be expected, the appearance of the PEPSU troupe and succeeding performers in films had an enormous impact on how their South Asian audiences would come to view bhangra (and, in turn, to view Punjabis through bhangra). However, the usual pattern seems to have been one of folkloric bhangra trends appearing in film, rather than being influenced by it. The dances in films that did not utilize professional bhangra experts bore only passing resemblance to the PEPSU troupe performances – more so in the style of dress than in movement. A Pakistani film to include a bhangra scene that closely resembled the PEPSU style was Naaji (1959). In all, one might recognize a trajectory of development of bhangra within films, down to the current, long-standing bhangra fad in the Mumbai industry. However, this subject has more bearing on how non-Punjabi South Asians have imagined bhangra than the Punjabi self-identification with which this essay is mainly concerned.

73. Garib Dass said, in describing the jhummar dance of his Bazigar community's past, that the dancers used to include all sorts of amusements within the dance (personal communication, March 19, 2005).

74. Nahar Singh, Panjābī Lok-Nāch, 63.

75. One story goes that one of the PEPSU troupe dancers took an expandable rack, for hanging clothes, from off a wall and found it made an interesting percussive sound (as per later team member Trilochan Singh Baath, in an unreleased video interview with Teginder and Surinder Dhanoa, February 16, 2006).

76. The introduction of kāṭo is unclear. It seems possible that the giddhā dance of men of the Malwa area, which nowadays employs this and other minor instruments, may have lent the kāṭo to the PEPSU troupe – who were based in the heart of Malwa. Most informants on pre-Partition bhangra give it no mention, and one gets the strong suggestion that it did not exist in community bhangra. One statement that contradicts this is Tandon's claim that he'd seen it in use in Gujrat in his boyhood, ca. 1910–1920s (Tandon, Punjabi Century, 57). It is possible that he remembered incorrectly, and his statement was influenced by what he later saw of folkloric bhangra in the 1950s.

77. The 1968 bhangra group at Republic Day festivities, under the direction of Bhag Singh, first utilized a large number of these props (Harbhajan Singh, in unreleased video interview with Teginder and Surinder Dhanoa, February 15, 2006).

78. Personal communication, June 15, 2005.

79. For example: Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Farmers of India, 146; Bhag Singh, “Bhangra: The Most Virile Form of Indian Folk Dances,” Spokesman Weekly [Chandigarh], July 20, 1981, 7; and Massey, India's Dances, 235.

80. Brard, East of Indus, 312.

81. The delegation included Manohar Deepak, Gurbachan Deepak, Bhana Ram, and Mangal Ram. (The Indian Cultural Delegation in China, 56.)

82. Harbhajan Singh grew up in the subdistrict Shakargarh, just west of the present Indo-Pak border. At Partition, he came to reside on the eastern side in village Khokhar Faujian, not far from Batala. Other men of his generation, from his birth area, also came to reside in Khokhar Faujian and they, too, recalled the community bhangra.

83. Personal communication, February 23, 2005. This information is as per my personal communication with Harbhajan Singh, but another article states that he led the groups straight through to 1987 (Aditi Tandon, “Bhangra and Republic Day are His Greatest Passions,” Tribune [Chandigarh, on-line], December 22, 2004).

84. For his first Republic Day bhangra presentation in 1960, Harbhajan Singh had selected from among dancers from these colleges (Harbhajan Singh, February 2006, in interview footage by Teginder and Surinder Dhanoa).

85. The idea of ‘coaches’ and ‘teams’ is appropriate; a college bhangra team of young Punjabi males could be likened to a football team in its organization, training routine, and even ethos.

86. Bhag Singh, “Pradhānagī Shabad,” 67.

87. Ibid.

88. A wrestling-inspired step called bhalvānī (not to be confused with dhamāl), and an associated ṭikā-ṭik rhythm were created (Schreffler, “Signs of Separation,” 807).

89. For an example, see Schreffler, “Signs of Separation,” 848–9.

90. One sees a typical presentation of more or less ‘standardized’ bhangra in the late 1980s on the videocassette Learn Bhangra in 7 Days (Latta). The name of the video alone is an indicator of the degree to which bhangra's form had been thought to be standardized.

91. Also noted by Dhillon, Folk Dances of Punjab, 149.

92. Jaidev Dhanda, personal communication, February 2, 2013.

93. Teginder Dhanoa, personal communication, October 16, 2009 and August 17, 2012.

94. Teginder Dhanoa, personal communication, August 17, 2012.

95. Gaye LeBaron, “Indian Dancers in Occidental,” The Press Democrat [Santa Rosa, CA], July 21, 1961, 14. Article copy courtesy Gurdev Dhanda and Teginder Dhanoa.

96. Teginder Dhanoa, personal communication, October 17, 2003.

97. Dhanoa was brother-in-law of troupe members Gurdev Dhanda and Jaidev Dhanda.

98. Ibid.

99. Lena Sin, “East Meets West on Dance Floor,” The Province [Vancouver, on-line], May 4, 2011.

100. Jackson, “Union Activism,” 13.

101. Naveen Girn, web blog, August 20, 2011. http://blog.bhangra.me/post/982868860/this-is-why-i-love-my-job-i-recently-completed. This came out of the exhibit bhangra.me co-curated by Girn and which ran at the Museum of Vancouver, May 2011–January 2012.

102. Tejinder Singh, personal communication, December 10, 2001.

103. Pande, “Bhangra Vancouver Style,” 5.

104. Press release by Museum of Vancouver, “Vancouver's Unique Bhangra Story Revealed,” April 27, 2011.

105. Garib Dass, personal communication, December 10, 2007.

106. Schreffler, “Signs of Separation,” 306–7. The Punjabi Cultural Association of Vancouver invited/sponsored Garib Dass to perform at the Expo ’86 primarily, but they also had him give other performances during that time around British Columbia and also in Toronto. Garib Dass’ son, Des Raj has now (2013) finally established himself as a permanent resident in British Columbia – one of very few Bazigar drummers to do so.

107. Khan et al., The Arts Britain Ignores, 60.

108. Ibid., 58–9.

109. Leante, “Urban Myth,” 199.

110. For more on the UK dhol phenomenon, see Leante, “Urban Myth.”

111. For example, UCLA's group can be seen in their manner of performance in 1990 on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nzo94Bi0OU.

112. Opened in 1990, Ziba was a significant hub for the distribution of popular music and film from South Asia and the Diaspora.

113. Bhangra was performed at an Indo-American Society function in West Hollywood (“Society to Mark 20th Anniversary,” Los Angeles Times, November 6, 1977, I11).

114. An interesting footnote to the history of bhangra dance in Southern California is a performance by the UCLA-connected folkloric dance company Aman Folk Ensemble. Choreographed by Leona Wood, Aman performed this mixed-gender rendition in a programme broadcast on Los Angeles public television station KCET, December 1977. The performers were entirely non-Punjabi. Contextual information courtesy of Anthony Shay (July 2012).

115. Press release by Stanford News Service, “Indian Subcontinent Group to Stage Bhangra Dance Competition, Party,” dated January 30, 1995.

116. There were exceptions, for example, the presence of traditional dhol-player Lal Singh Bhatti, who settled in the Bay Area in the late 1980s and who has since trained scores of students.

117. The customary method in the earlier years was for someone in the organization to create a music mix and for one or more captains to choreograph a dance. Teams practiced on university grounds, dancing to a boombox playing back the mix.

118. First the website Punjab Online and then Bhangra Teams’ Forum have been the main sites to host boards on which members discuss Diaspora bhangra teams, competitions, and their issues.

119. Chacko and Menon, “Longings and Belongings,” 98.