Festival Dance 3: Gryffindor: indian folk dance

This is a folk dance that I performed on a Indian Independance Day Celebrationa few years ago.

It is normally a group dance, but can be performed solo as well, you can see who I am on the video because of the zoom in that the camera did.

Bhangra is a traditional Indian Folk dance that originates from the state of Punjab. It has spread to the rest of India, and is actually the most popular indian dance in Bollywood and other western countries too!

One of the festivals that includes having a Bhangra dance performed is Pongal.

Pongal is another name for Makkar Sankranti, which takes place of January 14th every year. The festival indicates the changing of the earth's tilt, so that the days get longer and the nights shorter: in India of course!

More soon!

Bhangra is an extremely lively and colourful dance, which makes it so attractive, especially to the young population.

As you can see and hear in my video, Bhangra is accompanied by the beat of a huge drum called the dhol, which you can hear in th ebackground.

This repetitive, deep drum beat is designed to strike at the heart of all the dancers, and I can vouch for the fact that when the dhol starts, we all start to dance more vigourously and smile a heck of a lot more!

You can also see the vibrant colours and the hankerchief-like things we are waving. The pieces of clth are simply there to add more colour, life and accentuate the hand movements in the dance.

Next: Colour!

Sometimes, Bhangra is performed in Holi celebrations because it is so colourful.

Holi, the festival of colour, is celebrated by, naturally, throwing coloured water bombs, shooting from coloured water guns and generally throwing coloured powder everywhere!

Red is a main colour that is used in the powder. Reds, yellows, saffrons are great, traditional bhangra colours, as are blues and purples.

This is a classic dhol that creates the beat for the dancers and audience.

Next: I'll try and get a clip of a dhol beat for you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7d9-jQUWHQ

This is a clip of a man who is showing how to play the dhol in classic bhangra beats.

In a dance, all of these and more would be put together to give a variety of different beats and rythms.

ENJOY!

In rural India, most men wear trousers called dhotis which are wrap-around-and-under pieces of cloth. They also wear lungis, which are also pieces of cloth that are worn like wrap-around skirts. These are the traditional clothes for bhangra along with a loose long kurta top and for special occasions, a colourful jacket and a turban.

Bhangra is traditionally a men's dance, the women's form of bhangra is called the Giddha which is quite similar in music, colour, dhol, etc, but the moves are slightly different.

Sometimes, Bhangra involves some acrobatics, like building human towers and dancing as such because a human tower is one of the old legendary things that Lord Krishna used to do as a child. I think that this is the reason for this, other than the fact that it is great fun!

Next: Classic Moves

The main position that quite a lot of the moves in Bhangra are done in is a sort of squatting posture, with arms out and up at the sides.

This makes the body seem bigger and larger, and allows more space and gives more ability to jump around and swing your arms, making the coloured cloth swing and give nice patterns too.

The arms are nearly always out, because of the nature of the dance: it seems fitting to wave them around, as you do when you're happy.



In rural Punjab, Bhangra was also performed as a Harvest dance, to speed up time (when you're having fun) and celebrate the coming harvest.

Now, it is danced at many happy occasions, such as wedding receptions, birthdays, discos, etc wehn there are lots of people and extremely loud music. It has been mixed with more Western ideas and music such as rap, reggae, hip hop, etc to make it more attractive to Indians born and raised in the west.

Bhangra, like all Indian classical and folk dances, is danced bare foot.

This could be for quite a few reasons, the most practical of which is because it is simply too hot and bothersome in India to wear shoes. Many people would not be able to afford fancy shoes for dance if they were farmers celebrating harvest. Also, Bhangra is quite a spur of the moment kind of dance, so preparing for a dance show on a stage is quite different from getting together a few friends and just starting to dance wherever you please.

The final reason, I believe, is the religious belief that Mother Earth is sacred. One should not stamp around disrespectfully on Mother Earth with great clumpy muddy boots, so since bare feet are most natural and gentle, it is more respectful to dance barefooted.

The Dance:

::As the curtains opened, WL grinned at the audience, her cheerful exuberence setting the standard for the rest of the dance. She clutched her hankies, and made sure none of her jewellery would fall off any time soon, taking a mantal inventory of last minute things, since she was on stage. At a normal party, she would just have up and danced like the loon her friends often thought she was.

The music started, a steady shake of bells at first, which she started stamping to, arms at her sides, getting the anticipation building in the audience. The dhol beat started quickly and WL kicked outwards, warming up to the song. The moves flowed out of her, she had been taught this particular dance well, and she couldn't forget it if she tried. Other bhangra dances were just improvisation; make up the moves based on ones you've learnt...!

::WL clapped a rhythm enthusiastically as she swayed her shoulders and held her arms up high.

::Soon, the song would start...::