Judging Traditionality in the MUSIC Category

[faizan]

lol. my point exactly.

 

[Harman]

I didnt read the whole thread, but truthfully traditionality in a set should be based not on what you do in a set. Rather it should be based on how the move is executed and a synchronized amongst the team. Bhangra has evolved so much since it first originated, alot of what people call folk today is based on what india teams did 5 or 6 years ago. But what remains from all this is the josh and form dancers in india brought to the stage.

 

[Gabbah Shareef Bhalwan]

I didnt read the whole thread, but truthfully traditionality in a set should be based not on what you do in a set. Rather it should be based on how the move is executed and a synchronized amongst the team.

Can you be more specific? How the move is executed (cleanliness? with vigor?) means what. for example? Being synchronized has something to do with traditionality? I am confused because people doing actual folk dance are not usually very synchronized.


[font=verdana, sans-serif][/font][quote author =Mariam][font=verdana, sans-serif]
it is the essence of bhangra- the way the dancers dance, the way moves are put together and executed, that makes the difference between a creative "punjabi style dance" versus a creative nachdi or BK bhangra set
[/font][/quote][font=verdana, sans-serif][/font]

[font=verdana, sans-serif]This sounds like it might go with Harman's comment. "the way the dancers dance" = style? "the way moves are put together" = choreography? "the way moves are...executed" -- could you be more specific?[/font]

[font=verdana, sans-serif]A way I am proposing to be more specific is to compare and critique the above videos. How do the performances rank with respect to these suggested chracteristics of traditionality?[/font]

 

[Saleem]

Honestly, if a category "traditionality" is judged solely by ticking off "yes you did that move, yes you did that move, you did 18 out of the 21 traditional moves" -- then that category should be trashed. I know that's not a solution (my suggestions were in earlier posts), but just objectively saying you did X out of Y moves is useless. Yes, judging is subjective; every other category, from "creativity" to "choreography" is subjectively judged, too. That's why you have judges.

 

[Sohaj]

Judging 'traditionality' in Bhangra can’t be something that is just a matter of having certain segments in a set… I feel its more than that (although existence of these segments in a routine obviously plays a strong role). I feel the way I define 'traditionality' is sorta along the lines of what Mariam said…it’s the essence of Bhangra. It seems like a vague idea but I do feel most people on the circuit know intuitively what that means. To explain it explicitly is challenging but I will give it a shot…In my opinion, it has something to do with the execution - your form (back straight, chest out, chin up, dancing big), your nakhra, your fluidity and the balance of power/grace. These ideas seem to be consistent with the notion of Bhangra I have seen since my childhood.

Now, the level of creativity in the Bhangra circuit in North America is amazing. How do you judge traditionality with moves being retooled every day? From a judging perspective, I think it should start out with what segments are included in the set. It would be nice if comps could just explicitly state what segments they want and then teams can include a few optional ones at their discretion. Next, judges should look at elements of execution within the dance (for ex: form, nakhra, etc). Also, judges should be able to decipher where the moves are coming from. For example, in the videos Gibb posted, you can tell that both moves are Faslaan. As long as the next derived version of faslaan can be traced back to the previous one and the team can execute it properly, I think the team is ‘traditional’ enough. Phumniyan is a good example of a move that teams have tried to be creative with while maintaining resemblance to the original move. Once we start moving away from that resemblance, I think the choreography turns modern. This is why gimmicks don’t really add anything into a traditional set, in my opinion.

Also, Saleem I disagree with you on the idea of cleanliness. Choreography needs to match the ability of the team…and cleanliness is a metric for that. Now, given that both teams are clean and equal in other categories, the team with entertaining/traditonal routine should always win. But if you are trying to execute a set which you are incapable of executing, you are failing at a very basic idea of being a dance team. That is true for ‘traditional’ competitions as well as ‘modern’ competitions.

At the end, as Saleem mentioned, it is a subjective idea that judges have to figure out. There should be a ‘traditonal’ category in the rubric and it should appeal to the ‘essence’ of Bhangra. I think most audience members understand that notion aswell. The litmus test I would use for choreography is having a somewhat intelligent person who grew up in Punjab, but didn’t do Bhangra, look at my choreography and see what they think about it. If they feel its Bhangra, I feel I am on the right track.

 

[Gabbah Shareef Bhalwan]

As long as the next derived version of faslaan can be traced back to the previous one and the team can execute it properly, I think the team is ‘traditional’ enough. Phumniyan is a good example of a move that teams have tried to be creative with while maintaining resemblance to the original move. Once we start moving away from that resemblance, I think the choreography turns modern.

Here is another comparison between the videos, 1996 vs. ca2006.


Phuhmmanian starts ay 1:33
Pammi Bai demonstrates bhangra


Fumniyan


How much essence do they have, and how traditional are their execution? (I still don't get this idea of execution on a scale of traditional, because i understand the word execution to mean how well or how skillfully you do something. The elements mentioned seem to me more matters of style.)

 

[siddyp]

Sohaj, I understand your points and have some questions for you.

To me, competition between multiple teams or in head to head competition, the playing field must be the SAME for all competitors. In team sports, each team is different, has different talent levels, styles of play, etc. but they all play under the SAME conditions/playing field. Why should it not be the same for Bhangra? Yes it is a dance, but it is competitive. Due to the fact that steps, choreography, and styles are constantly evolving, I think it is extremely hard to give every team a level playing field for this section of the rubric due to the fact that judges experiences and feelings are all different.

If we are going to lump choreographic elements AND style of execution into the 'traditionality' category, how do we assign point values? What constitutes to a 'perfect' score? For each judge this is going to be different. If competitions force teams to have certain segments, it can limit creativity, and uniqueness among sets in the competition. Granted it is hard to find a team without a jhoomer segment, or props, but we see certain teams perform phumania without completion of all recognizable 16 beats, what happens then? And for the execution of steps, each judge is going to have varying ideas of what is traditional and not and what keeps the essence of bhangra. Each routine is 7+ minutes long. There are SO MANY steps performed in that time frame. How can we assign a point system to the 'essence of bhangra'? If an ENTIRE team decides to bend their backs for a couple of steps and they do it all together, does that get points taken off since they didn't dance with backs straight and chests out for certain steps in the routine?

In regards to what audiences think, I think its very easy to find people who say that Empire should have won Elite 8 1 and 2. A lot of us bhangra lovers dont' believe so, but a lot of 'standard' audience members think they should have.

I still think in your argument, there is a lot of don't knows that constitute to extreme differentiation among judges which makes the playing field un even. In entertainment value of choreography, cleanliness, overall performance, there is no where near as much differentiation in opinion/thoughts.

Again I do understand your points and can agree to them, but if a competition accepts a 'modern' team, how do your points keep the playing field level?

 

[Sohaj]

Sorry Sid, I don’t understand the ‘level playing field’ issue you are referring to completely. I feel if the comp announces what segments should be in a set, it infact does create a level playing field. Whether you are modern or traditional team, you know whats expected from you. Your creativity is how you use those limitations to create an interesting set. Also, since some modern comps do require teams to include gimmicks, it doesn’t seem like a big issue if traditional comps impose a limitation of their own (whether its on segments or anything else). Maybe this limitation just serves as a floor and allows other segments to be included on top of it, but I do think it would level the playing field and actually give the organizers something more than just saying we are going to be ‘traditional’.

Now, is there such a thing as ‘traditionality’ in execution? I think you guys are referring to this as ‘style’ while others are referring to it as a ‘traditional’ way to execute a move (with form, fluidity, etc). At the end we are talking about the same thing and as long as its included in the rubric and it focuses on these elements, I don’t have a problem. Now if I move this ‘traditional’ execution element to a ‘style’ category, the obvious question is whats left in the traditional category (asides from the inclusion of segments)? I think that one strong element left is do the moves resemble ‘Bhangra’ moves or is it just something random. I feel this idea does require some allocation of points (atleast in a ‘traditional’ comp). All these things combined is again ‘essence’ of Bhangra and you can obviously allocate points to it. Maybe it should be more entrenched in the rubric rather than something that just hits you in the face under the category ‘traditionality’.

Sid, you raise an interesting point…how do you allocate points when a team doesn’t finish all 16 beats in phuminyan (or other moves they are being creative with)? I questioned that myself a few times. My personal preference is teams should finish the move so even 'traditonalists' can appreciate the full range of creativity that team possesses. But for comps/judges, I feel that’s the balance that each of them have to figure out for themselves. This is the subjectivity I was referring to and I don’t think you can create a perfect rubric with proper allocation of points for all possible scenarios. That is why comps have judges and they should be given some leeway with this. In response to your example of a group of dancers bending their backs as part of the choreo…if I was the judge, I wouldn’t deduct points for that in of itself as long as its part of the choreo and I can somewhat figure out where the move is coming from. There is a difference in bending your back willingly to add some creativity/flare or just having a bad posture. The later should result in point deductions.

Also, I'm not sure if I buy the sports analogy. I look at Bhangra judging more along the lines of how do u judge BBQ ribs? TO narrow it down, how do u judge whether one set of Memphis Style Ribs is better than another one? You can list certain ideas such as tenderness, flavor, appearance, etc but your can't take out the subjectivity of the judges.

 

[J Wong]

DISCLAIMER: I, JORDAN WONG, DO NOT HOLD ANYTHING AGAINST ANY REFERENCED TEAMS IN ANYWAY. THE REFERENCE OF ANY TEAM IS UTILIZED IN AN INSTRUCTIONAL MANNER AND NOT ANY ATTEMPT TO JUDGE THE TEAM OR IT'S MEMBERS.

UNC Bhangra Elite at Bhangra in the Burgh 5


Culture Shock X -- Act 1: Masaledaar Swag


Why will UNC always place over Masaledaar Swag? Traditionality. Both teams have recognizable segments and steps and both teams, not necessarily equally, do the steps the same as their team members. I believe traditionality has a lot to do with execution more than what is included, because you can include a bunch of segments and do them all the same but it won't have the traditional essence.


Traditionality should not be a strict mandate of what something should look like but rather we should use it as a meter. A good example is a rod on a beach, as you swim away from the beach the rod becomes further away from you but you still know where you came from i.e. the beach. When you stray too far the rod is out of sight and the point on the beach from where you started is lost. The same can be applied to bhangra, creativity is good but you should always have some of the essence of the original move, the sight of the rod on the beach.


Should traditionality be a separate category? No. It should, however, be a sub category of greater creativity category in which points are awarded to how well the team balances creativity and the traditional essence of te step.

 

[siddyp]

Sohaj, my last point regarding modern teams and a level playing field referred to the 'essence of bhangra' that has been referred to in this thread. The segments required makes sense and that is a level playing field. But if a judge takes points on HOW a team executes their bhangra I feel is not a fair playing field. Judging panels are supposed to be diverse. The goal is to appeal to every judge on the panel. If a few judges take points off due to them executing steps their own way, and others don't, it is a dilemma that I think can be easily avoided and can create a level playing field if style of execution is not a part of traditionality. Regardless of a judges bhangra background, cleanliness, choreography, and overall performance are aspects that everyone has a level playing field on: best team of the night will win.

The subjectivity of a judge should come in on their liking of the taste of the rib. Not if its a traditional rib or not. It is a rib. They didn't cook steak. If a team does bhangra then it is bhangra. How much they innovate and if the innovation is 'to far from the rod' to refer to Jordans example, is up to the judge. If a team doesn't do bhangra then we can take points from the traditionality part of the rubric. I hope that makes more sense...

I really like the discussion! Please keep it goin!

 

[Gabbah Shareef Bhalwan]

I believe traditionality has a lot to do with execution more than what is included, because you can include a bunch of segments and do them all the same but it won't have the traditional essence.

I'm still not clear how traditionality relates to execution. Still no specific examples or demonstrations of what entails more or less traditional execution. I might have some sense of what you mean if it actually rang true that there is a consistent traditional element, but there is not, so it does not. That pole on the beach is really a gull.


In ACTUAL traditional dance...I'm not talking about folkloric stagi bhangra, but rather about people dancing jhummar or luddi or sammi in traditional community contexts, execution tends to be rather poor. This is because they are not professional dancers or they are not necessarily (or primarily) dancing for other people to judge them. So I would think that execution is characterized by much lack of synchronization and by a certain roughness or sloppiness. Once you've put a dance on the stage however, and you are judging one against the other, one way to distinguish performances is by better or worse execution. I really don't understand why people want to embed the notion of traditionality in that.


Check out these guys I filmed dancing in Malerkotla. Mostly local Muslim guys, dancing outside a Sufi shrine. I don't know if you know what Malerkotla is like, but life is not like being in Jalandhar and going to college with dreams of moving to Canada, watching videos about notorious Jatts, and learning to do "kabootar chaal". It's just guys who hang out in their own word and, when they dance, do so just about as "naturally" as I can imagine, in a Punjabi style. The beat is bhangra; I guess you could say they're doing bhangra, though of course they are not tapped into the whole stage art thing.
Bhangra in Malerkotla
Anyways, do they have the essence? Is the essence of traditionality here? Does one learn this essence of traditionality only on the stage in college? Does a guru teach this tradition to his shishyas, or can it only be imbibed from training with a boombox on the academic quad?


If you guys haven't seen the other recent thread with this topic, I posted in it a video of Balbir Sekhon, member of the team who first "invented" stage bhangra. Does he have traditionality of execution and/or the essence?
Balbir Singh Sekhon dancing bhangra


The way he dances actually reminds me more of the lads in Malerkotla, but more polished because he is on stage. I don't see any of these guys jumping from leg to leg, rocking back and forth, kicking their feet high in the air, keeping a stiff back, swing their arms in huge gestures, staring at their hands like they're in love with them, etc.

 

[faizan]

Gabbah, let me break this down for you:


here are the facts:


1. North American bhangra is derived exclusively from post 1980's stage bhangra.
2. Any notion of punjabi folk dances before 1980 is irrelevant and frankly, the circuit pretends it never existed in order to hang on to their notion of "traditional."
3. The "essence" everyone speaks of, was established in post 1980s, and honestly, post 1998 staged, live bhangra from India.
4. The major teams today are taught to do bhangra from ustaads and coaches who came up in the 70's and 80's. They themselves are quite ignorant of anything pre-partition.
5. the idea that punjabi folk dance is not traditionally synchronized is completely lost on the circuit.
6. don't even bother.


people choose to believe what they want. they choose to hold on to the notions of "Traditionality" as they have romanticized them. and they will continue to swear by a bastardized form of punjabi folk dance, despite the facts, history, and heritage of Punjab.

 

[Sue Sylvester]

Yeah, we get it. We are not doing bhangra. We are doing "bhangra". We (or rather the 1980s) accidentally and unknowingly (or perhaps, intentionally to make the dance form aesthetically pleasing and structured) created rules and definitions for elements of an art-form that never had those parameters in the first place. I actually don't see any problems with our current system - the art-form is still evolving in this state. In fact, I think there is no rational need to remove the "traditionality in content and execution of 'bhangra'" criteria from the rubrics. It serves an important purpose, but it needs to be renamed to something like "bhangra grammar, step morphology and syntax".

Here's an analogy from the strange mind of kinnell: When humans first began to speak and communicate, the resulting cacophany was chaotic and seemingly random. But overtime, words were formed along with sentences along with ways to piece everything together to create and communicate in an effective and audibly pleasing manner. These were the grammar, syntax, morphology of language. Over time, new languages evolved and new rules were established. No one is forced to follow these rules, but to be looked on favorably by the another person, you better use grammar and syntax that they use as well. But most importantly, English professors do not spell-correct and correct grammar based on what it used to be traditionally but what it seen as acceptable today. Similarly, forget what bhangra use to be before and stop thinking of its form in the past - accept that "bhangra" exists today with specific guidelines but realize that it can change tomorrow based on the audience (speaker & listener).

There are three forces at play in the North American bhangra circuit. There are the teams/clubs/dancers. There are the competitions/judges. And there is the audience/world. All three are completely dependent on each other. The dancers strive to do a style of "bhangra" that allows them to get prizes at competitions (team style of bhangra must align with judges and competitions view of "bhangra") in addition to a style that allows them to be remembered and be appreciated by the audience and world. The competitions & judges establish their "bhangra" for teams to imitate but at the same time recognize that their "bhangra" must be a little bit something that the audience would pay them to see. I think recognizing these three factors will allow us to see the bigger picture a bit more clearly.

If a team is performing a "bhangra" that less and less people are interested in watching and less and less competitions are hosting, then you are speaking a dying language. It sucks, but it's called natural selection, evolution. If a competition or a judge is advocating a "bhangra" that audiences do not want to see or teams do not perform, then the competition will not get teams nor will they get money to continue. Essentially, we need to establish and accept the current form of "bhangra" as current guidelines (with the possibility of competitions tweaking and altering them in the future) as opposed to what was done in the past. We do not speak in Old English anymore but "society" (aka competitions who try to govern what works and doesnt) and the "rest of the people" (aka audience) have over the years been slowly responsible for the "Modern" English we speak today, which is constantly changing itself as well.

 

[Gabbah Shareef Bhalwan]

people choose to believe what they want. they choose to hold on to the notions of "Traditionality" as they have romanticized them. and they will continue to swear by a bastardized form of punjabi folk dance, despite the facts, history, and heritage of Punjab.

This may be so, but I don't view my personal role as telling people they are wrong, or what to believe. I am genuinely interested in the specifics of people's aesthetics--what they think is good and why. And in that case I challenging them to back up the philosophies/rationales behind those aesthetics. Challenging can be as simple as presenting information and evidence that seems to contradict those viewpoints. Whatever people decide in the end is fine; they can't say they didn't have the information.

Along those lines, re: the "fasalaan" action, above-- Still unknown how people would rank them either in "traditionality in content and execution of 'bhangra'" or "bhangra grammar, step morphology and syntax". So here is some more info.

The action is one of the "International Chaalaan" that the bhangra team under Bhag Singh made up in the 1970s, on the occasion of performing abroad and needing to fill up a 45 minute slot. Before the performance by Pammi Bai, he made the direct comment to the audience (paraphrasing) that "Actually speaking the truth, all these moves were made up. But they serve to beautify the dance." In a way, his last sentence may have been to sooth the chagrin of Bhag Singh, who was sitting there in the audience. 4 years earlier, in a public forum, Bhag Singh had stated his regret that he had made up all those new actions and that he never should have done so.

While Bhag Singh might have felt a twinge of regret that he decreased bhangra's "traditionality," Pammi Bai's feelings may have been tempered by the fact that he grew up with those moves so they were what he knew and became embedded in his own approach to bhangra. Pammi Bai told me how much he used to admire the PEPSU dancers of the 50s, and he emulated their style in some respects. But really he was not born until 1958, a year after PEPSU troupe stopped doing Republic Day...so the bhangra Pammi Bai learned in college was after the changes made by Bhag Singh.

Anyways, these "chaals" were made to fill up time while the dancers moved all over the stage, and were done to variations of kahirva taal. Each chaal had a different yet specific variation of kahirva that matched it. Lal Singh Bhatti, as far as I know, was the dholi at the event for which these chaals were made up, so he should be able to say what they might have called it and if there was any special rhythm at that, initial time. What I do know is that Garib Dass thereafter became attached to Bhag Singh's stable of artists, so he was one responsible for maintaining the form and rhythm of these actions.

In Nahar Singh's book (1980s), there is reference only to "chaal 1", "chaal 2," etc. Learn Bhangra in 7 days also uses that label. When I learned the action from Garib Dass in 2000, it was being called "double chaal," to differentiate from "single chaal". The action of single chaal takes place over just one cycle of taal, whereas double chaal (and similar actions called "double") takes place over two cycles. The dhol rhythm for single chaal and double chaal is different. In fact, double chaal has its distinctive matching rhythm when played by dholis who have been trained within the profession. This distinction gets lost in American bhangra since the recorded music will not have the particular dhol rhythm that was established to match it. This "matching", incidentally, is considered very important to Indian Punjabi performers' sense of proper bhangra. If the rhythm doesn't go with the step as designated, it's wrong -- this being one way they judge "traditionality."

When and by whom the action received the name of "faslaan" I don't know, but it seems clear that this was not with it in the beginning and, similarly, it wasn't created to represent "wheat in the breeze." This idea that bhangra actions come from some kind of imitation of farming is B.S. (Lots of stuff spread in the early Internet era because if you put something online it's what everybody saw. E.g. that article on bhangra from POL has spread a lot of nonsense because it got copied so much.)

Pammi Bai is dancing the action in a style that I believe mirrors the style of his teachers, which were from among those that developed the move. The move became standard in college bhangra, which is where I'd assume the ca2006 video gets it from, though I'm not sure whether they had someone that emphasized how it should be executed.

I would like opinions on whether the step itself satisfies the criteria of traditionality, even if it was deliberately created one day in 1971 and the idea of it having an agricultural meaning is a myth. And I'd like to know whether Pammi Bai, the newer guys, or both are executing it with traditionality. What are the specifics that qualify as the traditionality in how they are doing "double chaal."

 

[voxanimus]

Gibb, I'm not going to quote your whole post, but I think I can address some of the questions you brought up.

First, a few preliminary considerations. We're talking about traditionality in the music category, so dhol-choreo matching is essentially a moot point. For live routines, I'm pretty sure that dholi/dancer synchrony is much more important. Given this, traditionality in music performances is assessed mainly visually. What the dancers do is what is looked at. someone said it before, on the other thread (i think it was sumeet or siddyp), but judges lionize as "traditional" moves and executions that mirror those of TODAY's live teams. some moves are executed similarly to what we see pammi bai doing, some are not. case in point: faslan vs. phumaniya.

in the case of faslaan (or double chaal, i guess), pammi bai's faslaan has not survived. not at all. the currently accepted "traditional," and really only, way of doing faslaan is what you see at 8:01 here. this is pretty much the same as the faslaan from the instructional video, which appears to be taught by snoop dogg in a turban. (i apologize if the step names in the video are laughable or incorrect. i didn't make it.) the team in that link is Virse De Waris; that performance is from 2010. i don't think i'd be wrong in saying that it's a pretty good example of what sort of choreo would be considered "traditional" if done by a music team. here's a very traditional music team, PCBCA, doing faslan (7:43). here's a very modern team, Nachdi Jawani, in a very modern performance, doing the same step (3:19). they both, in my book, and i think in most books, get traditionality points for faslaan. if you were to break it down analytically, here's what makes a traditional faslaan step: straight back, little sideways torso bending, and one "down" hand movement for every three "up" movements." pammi's is very "loose," with a lot of torso bending, and irregular placement (not 1 per 3) of "down" movements. his hands travel past the horizontal plane of his shoulders. traditional faslan, as we consider it today, shouldn't have that. in addition, pammi bai is keeping his legs fairly close together, whereas today we like them farther apart.

phumaniya is a bit different. here's what i'm taking to be the standard: VDW's phumaniya in the same performance i linked above (6:11). their phumaniya looks a lot like pammi bai's. they do the offbeat move, on the dhol rolls, the same way he does: their right leg bends at the knee with the ankle rising, their knees are close together, and their hands are always up. here are modern phumaniya segments. (4:13) in the NJ performance is a good, if short, example. here's another, from another "modern" team, Bhangra Knightz (2:09). both do their phumaniya pretty similarly, and that way is slightly different from pammi bai's. phumaniya is a four count deal, and, generally, the first two are spent doing one move and the second two are spent doing another. pammi bai's 1/2 are, from what i can see, either ankle back or foot down. VDW does the ankle back one. NJ and BK do something different: they lift their knees so that their knee is at its highest point on each count. PB's hands are always up; BK & NJ, however, significantly bend their hands at the elbows. i don't see PB doing that. the 3/4 of all four, though, are pretty similar. NJ, VDW, and BK all do the "kick the feet out sideways" thing. i saw PB doing that. he also does this "try to hit your hamstrings with your ankles as you jog" deal that only VDW does, though.

pammi bai, in his other moves in the videos you linked, does a lot of stuff that has survived to today as "traditional." his sialkoti jhoomer (again, i use these names for these steps because that's what i was told they were called when i learned them) is pretty much the same as the one practiced by VDW in the video i've linked. his dhamaal survived, too.

what we consider traditional today is what live teams do. far and away, modern live teams are influenced by the stylings of the agriculture/khalsa college folks in india, and what they've been doing and what they are still doing. as you mentioned, pammi bai's primarily fabricated performance might have influenced these teams, and that's probably why his stuff's remained relatively intact.

at the core of it all, despite what judges attempt to say, traditionality is measured holistically. there isn't a reductionist heuristic for it. if a judge watches a bhangra performance and doesn't see any moves he hasn't seen before, it's traditional. if he does see moves he hasn't before, depending on their frequency and "radicalness," the performance is modern. watch the full NJ performance, and contrast it with the PCBCA one. what do you see, gibb? i think we'd like to know the differences that pop out to you. NJ's performance above is eminently modern, as far as the circuit goes, and PCBCA's is pretty damn traditional; again, by the reckoning of the circuit. NJ included a lot of stuff that isn't bhangra, and is actually very clearly something else (the diavolo yoyo thing, for example, is Chinese.) PCBCA didn't have anything that was overtly non-bhangra. at least, that's what i think.

 

[hardeep_singh]

and they will continue to swear by a bastardized form of punjabi folk dance, despite the facts, history, and heritage of Punjab.

bastardized - corrupted; debased; lowered in quality or character

i don't agree with your assessment that folk dance has been bastardized, in line with what kinnell said, i believe it has evolved and been refined. a fact lightly touched upon is the skill level difference required when comparing "folk" dances as performed naturally for fun or celebration and stage dances performed in coordinated groups for competition or entertainment. i personally think that's the cool thing about modern bhangra circuit, the way teams put their own unique twists on moves and choreo or how they change moves to be more complex and difficult to differentiate from other teams. to be competitive as a bhangra team dancers have to be at a certain skill level and that's what determines the complexity of the moves and how they're executed.

 

[faizan]

still think the folk dances of punjab are bastardized...


they no longer serve their intended purpose. the intent which was established hundreds of years ago, and thrived until about the 60's-70's.


lowered in quality? no, lowered in character, yes.

 

[Gabbah Shareef Bhalwan]

I don't believe stage bhangra, in India or North America, is traditional dance. But that is not at issue. (And because it's not at issue for me personally, I'm personally not concerned with the idea of bastardization, faizan. I have personal opinions about what looks good, but I am not going that route in judging bhangra; it's not my place.)


The issue is "traditionality," which, as I have said I understand it, is not the quality of being traditional, but rather the quality of satisfying someone's sense of tradition. So traditionality depends not only on what is being done, but also, more importantly on what some people gauge to be traditional.


If the category of "traditionality" is being interrogated, it's good to know what exactly contributes to that (whether holistically or reductively, we can still get a sense). I am talking about specifics, because it is too easy to use "traditionality" in a way that sounds like "a nice idea" without having any clear idea of what that refers to. That's when traditionality becomes a BS category. If you can say what specifically entails it, however, then it becomes a real category--though with a confusing name.


Although I personally think the idea of traditionality as a metric is not useful, that doesn't matter so much because I am not judging bhangra (thank God I escaped that, lol). I acknowledge the idea of traditionality as something existing (i.e. in people's brains!) and want to know more details about what ALL kinds of different people think. I'm wary of saying "they" (i.e. ppl one disagrees with) "just think whatever was done by xyz in abc time is traditional" because it kind of kills the voices of people. I want to hear those voices. I appreciate voxanimus's comments on the Pammi Bai, but I'd much rather hear (no offense to you, vox) how the others who were emphasizing "execution" and "essence" would critique it.


Having heard people's ideas on what entails traditionality, I want to challenge them. Challenging them is not to argue a point and prove "wrong." It's understand their ideas even better. Knowing that "fasalaan" is an action made up in 1971 and without any cultural meaning, does that change a person's idea of it's traditionality? I am asking if knowing that now (and not knowing it before) changes anything. For some the answer is no because they are saying fasalaan has become CANONICAL and they have adjusted their sense of traditionality to include "actions made up in the 70s." I'm not sure everyone would agree. I would like to know, for instance, if making up a new move that no one has seen before in a competition today would be called non-traditional whereas faslaan, created under the same circumstances 40 years ago, is traditional. Is it that today's new action must stand the test of time, and then after some years it will be accepted as traditional? Is there a specific length of time? Is it just ignorance of the history/heritage and IF SO is there any interest in adjusting one's concept of traditionality? Does one get the feeling that, if this move was essentially a "modern" one, then there might be lots more like it? If one says "whatever, it doesn't matter -- I'm going to stick with my uninformed view of traditionality," will one continue to talk about "heritage" and "virsa"?


For a long time, young people doing stage bhangra in Diaspora believed bhangra was traditional -- as done in India. And yet they knew they didn't have the knowledge of it; they tried their best, without the resources. Then suddenly people think they have gained access to the knowledge of how to do it traditionally. "Traditionality" was something that basically nobody had in America, and they couldn't really judge each other on it. I had been studying bhangra in Punjab, then I came back to my California university and joined their bhangra group in 2000 and couldn't understand what people were doing. It was something totally different, in so many ways. There was no point in judging them compared to Indian folkloric bhangra. Yes, so then comes this moment where some people see the chance to become "traditional". For the most part it has been layered on top of what was already a well established, very different thing in the Diaspora.


N.A. bhangra is not developed from Indian stage bhangra. It developed fresh, and much more under the influence of music videos and dancing to bhangra music in clubs, etc. The Indian bhangra stuff is an infusion at that particular moment, and I really don't think most people knew enough to get where it was coming from. People doing it, to my mind, do not become heirs to a legacy of development of stage bhangra in India, rather they have just imitated and picked up moves, mainly through media. I strongly suspect that while the Snoop Dogg guy's videos might be imagined as a reflection of what is commonly out there, they are more the source of a lot of what is now here. (Who ever heard of a Sialkoti jhummar, incidentally? Sialkot and jhummar don't belong in the same sentence, lol, so whoever started that needs to go back to jhummar school. And Parminder Singh of Choice Films needs to learn to spell 'jhummar' if he's writing in Punjabi and selling a video.)


I think one's increased knowledge of the history of what they are doing can only be positive. Maybe it will result in discarding the idea of traditionality or maybe it will clarify people's ideas. Sue Sylvester bemoans, "Yeah we get it...we are not doing bhangra". But who is "we"? And when did this idea of the contrived nature of stagi bhangra come into the picture of this "we" group? Hmm, POL ca2003 didn't have this consensus. Were there some people, perhaps, that brought this sort of information to people's attention? 8) That information changes "the discussion." It's information that I think engendered an approach to performance where ppl are no longer worried there is a phantom tradition back in India that they need to find, but rather they can be creative and do what they do and not be bullied by the quasi-traditionalists. I am going to keep providing information.

 

[J Wong]

I believe traditionality has a lot to do with execution more than what is included, because you can include a bunch of segments and do them all the same but it won't have the traditional essence.

I'm still not clear how traditionality relates to execution. Still no specific examples or demonstrations of what entails more or less traditional execution. I might have some sense of what you mean if it actually rang true that there is a consistent traditional element, but there is not, so it does not. That pole on the beach is really a gull.


In ACTUAL traditional dance...I'm not talking about folkloric stagi bhangra, but rather about people dancing jhummar or luddi or sammi in traditional community contexts, execution tends to be rather poor. This is because they are not professional dancers or they are not necessarily (or primarily) dancing for other people to judge them. So I would think that execution is characterized by much lack of synchronization and by a certain roughness or sloppiness. Once you've put a dance on the stage however, and you are judging one against the other, one way to distinguish performances is by better or worse execution. I really don't understand why people want to embed the notion of traditionality in that.


Check out these guys I filmed dancing in Malerkotla. Mostly local Muslim guys, dancing outside a Sufi shrine. I don't know if you know what Malerkotla is like, but life is not like being in Jalandhar and going to college with dreams of moving to Canada, watching videos about notorious Jatts, and learning to do "kabootar chaal". It's just guys who hang out in their own word and, when they dance, do so just about as "naturally" as I can imagine, in a Punjabi style. The beat is bhangra; I guess you could say they're doing bhangra, though of course they are not tapped into the whole stage art thing.
Bhangra in Malerkotla
Anyways, do they have the essence? Is the essence of traditionality here? Does one learn this essence of traditionality only on the stage in college? Does a guru teach this tradition to his shishyas, or can it only be imbibed from training with a boombox on the academic quad?


If you guys haven't seen the other recent thread with this topic, I posted in it a video of Balbir Sekhon, member of the team who first "invented" stage bhangra. Does he have traditionality of execution and/or the essence?
Balbir Singh Sekhon dancing bhangra


The way he dances actually reminds me more of the lads in Malerkotla, but more polished because he is on stage. I don't see any of these guys jumping from leg to leg, rocking back and forth, kicking their feet high in the air, keeping a stiff back, swing their arms in huge gestures, staring at their hands like they're in love with them, etc.

I understand exactly what you are saying here because I have seen people doing jhummar in a group, and while this is actual traditional bhangra (using one definition of tradtional as being something that is long established).

I feel like a few distinctions need to be made.

1. Traditional non-stage group bhangra, jhummar etc.
2. Stage Bhangra, specifically that from the 1970s - 1980s.
3. Modern Stage bhangra - 2007 - Present (perhaps earlier)

I believe that in discussing traditionality or what we believe as being traditional the distinction must be made between non-stage group bhangra and stage bhangra. Non-stage group bhangra can be considered traditional using the parameter that tradition is no less than 3 generations (100 years roughly). So from a denotative standpoint, what we do isn't "Traditional." What bhangra teams do today is based on 1970s - 1980s stage bhangra, as many have stated before me. So since tradition from a denotative standpoint cannot be applied, what do we call 1970s - 1980s bhangra? I think this is the heart of what Gabbah Shareef Bhalwan is trying to say. I think we use the world traditionality because we don't have an appropriate term to describe stage bhangra.

P.S. I don't think many of us utilize "Snoop Dogg guy's" videos as a reflection of bhangra. What I consider traditional bhangra is that used to celebrate the harvest of hemp, among other things, centuries ago. Stage bhangra of the 70s and 80s I simply consider as a metric to judge today's stage bhangra.

 

[HarjitSingh]

I don't have much to add to the discussion but I just wanted to clarify something.


The second video you posted of "Fumniyan" isn't the "traditional" fumniyan that we think of. This is actually a different step that they are doing. There is a video with this same instructor and group that demonstrates more "traditional" fumniyan. Except they call the step "shara rara". I would show you if I could but I can't find the video for it.

As long as the next derived version of faslaan can be traced back to the previous one and the team can execute it properly, I think the team is ‘traditional’ enough. Phumniyan is a good example of a move that teams have tried to be creative with while maintaining resemblance to the original move. Once we start moving away from that resemblance, I think the choreography turns modern.

Here is another comparison between the videos, 1996 vs. ca2006.


Phuhmmanian starts ay 1:33
Pammi Bai demonstrates bhangra


Fumniyan


How much essence do they have, and how traditional are their execution? (I still don't get this idea of execution on a scale of traditional, because i understand the word execution to mean how well or how skillfully you do something. The elements mentioned seem to me more matters of style.)