Are you ready for a bhangra blast?

Manpriya Singh 

Once upon a time in a salsa dance class, the media player mistakenly played a bhangra track. “Once bhangra music started playing, my class didn’t want to go back to doing salsa,” shares Jas K Shan, founder of Dance Dacha, on how that little technical flip,  got the class of adults out of control like they were little kids and she had to come up with a salsa-bhangra! 

Then there’s bhangra-funk, a dance form, in which, she says, you carry a funk attitude. “We also have a bhangra cardio trainer who totally combines dance and fitness. Then there’s masala bhangra…the combinations and possibilities are endless,” she adds. Quite an evolution when one thinks of the various amalgamations that traditionally form the core of bhangra—gidda, jhommar, sammi, dhamaal, kikli, gatka and jugni. 

Just so the tradition is not compromised in the process of evolution, Hardeep Singh Sahota, a UK-based teacher chose to pursue his Master’s in history of bhangra. “I wanted to answer some of the basic questions to do with the history, evolution and spirituality of the dance form,” he says, also a co-founder of World Bhangra Council. Some of the questions he also answered in his book Bhangra—Mystics, Music and Migration.  

“If we don’t reinvent it, then limited people will take to the dance form,” opines Avtar Singh Chana, founder and Co-CEO, World Bhangra Council. “Such is the energy that even girls prefer it to gidda. In the UK, there are some amazing all-girl bhangra troupes.” 

To highlight the universality of the dance, performances across the world will happen today at the same time, though in different time zones. “Somewhere it will be six in the morning, like in USA.”  

Put your hands up 

Every beat is upbeat and every step, a celebration. Just as a dhol is more than a percussion instrument; it signifies good times, bhangra is more than a dance form - it signifies culture, celebration and well, lately, even cardio all rolled into one.  So inspired was city-based bhangra coach Preet Singh by Canada-based bhangra group Bhangra Empire, that’s it’s his dream to compete with them. “Hollywood, hip-hop; if there is any kind of dance or music, then they have amalgamated bhangra into it.” 

Let’s not even get started about bhangra music, which has already invaded clubs, weddings, gyms and Bollywood. And well, yes, of course, dance classes too!