Am I the only one who reads something along the lines of "I'm too lazy to read other people's posts, but I want you to read mine" and then immediately ignores the rest of the post?
To add something constructive, I tend to agree with Jeeti's original thoughts, and I do think there's a relative lack of creativity in routines these days. I don't think the problem is solely traditional bhangra, because you can certainly be creative while maintaining a traditional style, but I do think the rise in popularity of traditional dancing has contributed a great deal because modern encourages more creativity by its nature. A lot of "traditional" performances I've seen borrow heavily from other traditional teams or videos from India that can be found on YouTube or elsewhere, and that's largely because most people probably don't have access to a resource like a proper coach who can teach them these things, so they have to go by what they find online.
That said, there have been and continue to be plenty of modern dances that lack creativity, and I tend to dislike those just as much as I dislike traditional dances that lack creativity.
Waleed, I like your hip hop analogy, and I think you can find similar examples in all kinds of arts (jazz, painting, film), but I'm not sure it applies perfectly here. Artists like Talib, Mos Def, and Common (who have sometimes been produced by Kanye, by the way) are about as distant from hip hop's African roots as KJ was, if not more. They're great artists, but there's a ton of creativity in their work, so I don't think they accurately represent the problem here, that I think Jeeti was getting at, which is that lack of creativity is a problem, not overemphasis on traditionality.
ahhaaha
