Bhangra Music and Dance: A Brief History of Bhangra

Bhangra is an umbrella term for several traditional South Asian folk dance forms and folk music styles, with origins in the Punjab region of Northeast Pakistan and Northern India. Traditional bhangra dance features several dancers in a circle. They move energetically, often with raised arms or shoulders, to the syncopated beat of the double-headed dhol drum.

Originally a rural dance performed at harvest festivals, the heavy rhythmic swing of bhangra music remains popular in modern Punjabi culture while also gathering new devotees from other points on the globe. The music of bhangra artists plays on dance floors worldwide, often as part of a remix with Western music genres like hip-hop, electronic dance music (EDM), and reggae. Contemporary bhangra is also a staple of musical numbers in Bollywood movies.

The exact origins of bhangra are unclear, but historians speculate that Punjabi farmers may have performed bhangra moves to pass the time while working as early as the fourteenth or fifteenth century in Sialkot, a Punjab district in Pakistan.

• The beginnings of modern bhangra. Over time, bhangra became a traditional dance performed at festivals celebrating the Vaisakhi (or Baisakhi) season, marking the beginning of the Hindu solar new year. In the twentieth century, bhangra followed the Punjabi diaspora, which saw millions of ethnic Punjabi citizens departing the Indian subcontinent and bringing their culture and tradition to numerous countries, most notably the United Kingdom. There, the Punjabi community began recording bhangra music in the 1960s. These recordings featured traditional Punjabi folk songs recorded by some of the earliest British bhangra artists, like Kuldip Manak.
• Experimenting with new sounds. By the 1980s, popular bhangra bands like Alaap, Heera, and Malkit Singh blurred the lines between Punjabi music and Western pop and rock, leading to greater exposure in mainstream circles and a more diverse array of experimentation. Canadian-born musician Jazzy B merged traditional folk with hip-hop influences, while Bally Sagoo remixed bhangra songs for his electronic dance music releases.
• Bhangra competitions grow in popularity. As modern bhangra music drew closer to Western influences, its traditional dance forms also adopted new choreography. A staple of Punjab entertainment for decades, Bhangra competitions featuring bhangra teams performing traditional dance moves began to spring up in the United Kingdom, United States of America, and Canada. These international contests added Western dance styles to their repertoire, which proved extremely popular with younger audiences.

Several characteristics define bhangra dance, including:

1. 1. Punjabi instruments: Traditional bhangra music features several Punjabi musical instruments, namely the dhol drum, which is necessary for creating the bhangra beat. Other instruments in bhangra music include the single-stringed tumbi, the violin-like sāraṅgī, and an array of additional percussion instruments like the tabla and dhad.
2. 2. Upbeat lyrics: Singers of traditional bhangra sing in Punjabi, and bhangra songs typically focus on upbeat topics to match the high energy of the music. Popular subjects in Western music—love, marriage, the joy of dance, the pursuit of happiness— are also frequently referenced in bhangra songs. Pride in Punjabi culture and heritage is also a favorite lyrical topic.
3. 3. Impassioned vocals: Bhangra singers do not employ the reedy tones of other Indian vocal styles but instead deliver songs in a high and impassioned voice. They also often ad-lib sounds and phrases to encourage a call-and-response with the audience.

Several characteristics define bhangra dance, including:

1. 1. Costumes: Bhangra dancers wear bright, colorful clothes while performing. Men typically wear a kurta (a long shirt) with a lungi (a cloth sash tied around their waists) and a turban on their heads. Women often don long shirts and pants known as salwar kameez and wear dupattas—vibrant scarves—around their necks.
2. 2. Dance styles: The term “bhangra” refers to many dance styles and art forms from the Punjab region. Jhumar features singers and dancers circling gracefully around a dhol player, while a luddi dancer places a hand behind and in front of their head while swaying their arms. Giddha is a performance-based dance for women, in which they enact scenarios depicted in the songs, while kikli has pairs of women whirling with linked arms and hands. Dhamal is a high-energy form with raised arms and shoulder-head shakes.
3. 3. Performance: In addition to traditional moves, the umbrella of bhangra dance has come to incorporate other forms of athleticism, such as Gatka, a Sikh martial art form that involves choreographed movement with weaponry, often performed on holidays. Gymnastic tumbling and formations are also part of many bhangra dances.

Contemporary bhangra continues to embody the cultural diversity seen in the British bhangra music movement while also retaining many of its traditional sounds. Bhangra music has also seen success through many popular US artists, most notably Jay-Z in a 2002 remix of Panjabi MC’s “Mundian To Bach Ke.” Missy Elliott (“Get Your Freak On”), Selena Gomez (“Come and Get It”), and Pras of the Fugees also scored critical or chart hits with bhangra-inspired music.

Women have also made greater inroads into bhangra dance culture, traditionally an art form that men performed. Modern bhangra now features more integrated dance, with men and women performing together, and in some cases, all-female bhangra teams performing at competitions. Female dancer Sarina Jain has paved the way for bhangra as a form of fitness with her Masala Bhangra workout program.

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