LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Bhangra: Dances
built 615 days ago
Bhangra is one of the most popular dance forms in the country. During its days of inception, Bhangra was performed on Baisakhi nights to welcome the harvesting season. Post independence it became accepted as a performing art. Today it is widely celebrated in wedding parties, receptions, birthdays, competitions, and other happy occasions.
Source:
Bhangra is one of the most vibrant, energetic, colourful, lively and explosive forms of dance today. It emerged from the Punjab region of India, hundreds of years ago. Since then, Bhangra culture has developed dramatically and this has prompted its massive increase in popularity.
Source:
One of the biggest Bhangra stars of the last several decades is Malkit Singh - known as "the golden voice of the Punjab" - and his group, Golden Star. Malkit was born in June 1963, in the village Hussainpur, in Punjab. He attended the Khalsa College, Jalandhar, in the Punjab, in 1980 to study for a B.A. in Arts. Here he met his mentor, Professor Inderjit Singh, who nurtured his skills in Punjabi folk singing and Bhangra dancing. Thanks to Singh's tutelage, Malkit entered and won many song contests during this time. In 1983 he won a gold medal at the University of Guru Nanak, in Amritsar, Punjab, for performing his hit song Gurh Naloo Ishq Mitha, which later featured on his first album, Nach Gidhe Wich, released in 1984.
Source:
Bhangra is perhaps the most vigorous form of South Asian Dances. Bhangra originated in the fertile land of Punjab, a Northwest region of the Indian Subcontinent. Bhangra is a cheerful and lively form of expression created among farmers while they worked in the fields. It abundantly reflects the vigor, the vitality, the level of exuberance, and the enthusiasm shared among the rural folk by the promise of a bumper crop.
Source:
Bhangra has developed as a combination of dances from different parts of the Punjab region. The term "Bhangra" now refers to several kinds of dances and arts, including Jhumar, Luddi, Giddha, Julli, Daankara, Dhamal, Saami, Kikli, and Gatka. Jhumar, originally from Sandalbar, Punjab, comprises an important part of Punjab folk heritage. It is a graceful dance, based on a specific Jhumar rhythm. Dancers circle around a drum player while singing a soft chorus. A person performing the Luddi dance places one hand behind his head and the other in front of his face, while swaying his head and arms.
Source:
To children of the '80s, Bhangra dance looks a lot like the old-school days of the Hammer dance and the Roger Rabbit, and maybe even a little of the Molly Ringwald and Jazzercise. You know, back before all the kids started "freaking." Bhangra involves kicking, stomping, bouncing, shoulder-pumping and elegant arm gestures that sometimes call to mind the hand jive -- the movements originally mimicked farming tasks, like plowing the fields.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Dances