What would you like teams to change?

[HarmanSingh]

Harman,
seriously if you ask the elders about the youth not being respectful you know what they are going to say....its the american in them or they are "americanized". I hear that ALL the time.
you can not connect being disrespect to culture. its just not punjabi's who are disrespectful...there are many cultures out there that are. Now as individual teams, they should be the one telling the members to be respectful. but as an ADULT they should know how and when to shut their mouths.
Drinking and fighting, again is just not a "punjabi" thing....there are MANY other cultures that do that.
I am not defending all this stuff, but you can not just say its a punjabi thing, we only see your own culture.
How can you stop this...well honestly it seems like it wont. MAYBE, cancel the parties...? just have a show. now will that work...i highly doubt that.


and someone mentioned about the culture and bhangra....which i agree, some stuff you can not understand if you do know the meaning behind it. Even in pakistan there are Sindi people that have a dance and you will not understand the concept unless you know the reason behind it.
but the modern bhangra....yeah that you will not need the culture behind it....that has changed so much that you really do not have meanings for.

Come on now, thats not true . Are you telling me NO elders find the youth here to be respectful? There are respectful youth and there are elders who acknowledge these youth as being so. What did you expect that Uncle to say? He came all the way from India, a man who has been doing bhangra for his entire life and has coached many teams and has contributed to this culture more than any of us could every do and over half the teams were being loud and ignorant right to his face.

My point about the drinking thing was that our culture has been minimized to just drinking. When your average person heres Punjabi, they equate it to drinking. And we as the bhangra teams are supporting this image rather than acknowledging its effect on our community. Punajbis have been given the stereotype of being loud, ignorant, brute like drinkers. Dont think teams have anything to do with it? I have seen teams with a shirt along the lines of "my drinking team has a bhangra problem". This is what we are advertising to people.


I find it funny no one is offering a rebuttal about POL. We all know it was people on teams posting there, disrespecting one another (a number of whom were caught)...and many of these teams are posting here. Is that not a problem? It just seems like everyone is trying to be PC now that their identities are revealed. Or how about when some guy on a team (cant remember which team) was on POL DEFENDING leaving a pugh on the ground during their performance? Is that not disrespect for the culture? Or how about how, every year, without fail, someone kicks a pugh on stage? Or how about how teams take off their pughs, crumple them up and throw them in a bag? The level of respect for the culture is almost non existent in many cases.

About it knowing the culture to dance fully, how can you dance with the best of your ability if you dont even know what your dancing too? I have seen so many people doing lalkaray during a jugni or something and its like, do you even know what your doing? You are yelling during a love song. Or people dancing to songs that they shouldnt even be dancing to. I think if you dont understand the lyrics or know the history behind many of them, you are kind of just learning the moves and doing them mindlessly, not really performing them. When someone who knows Punjabi hears a sher, you cant help but feel pumped up and a sense of pride..but if you dont know punjabi, its just another song with a cool beat.

And its cool people outside our culture want to learn about bhangra and do it, but I dont think its wise to dumb it down or water it down for anyone. If bhangra is not going to be accepted mainstream for what is, thats fine...its better than it being popular nationally but being a manipulation of what it actually is.

 

[Waleed]

Harman, I agree with a lot that you are saying. I will post more regarding this later but you do make a lot of sense and have some very valid concerns.

 

[Jeeti]

Dont think teams have anything to do with it? I have seen teams with a shirt along the lines of "my drinking team has a bhangra problem". This is what we are advertising to people.

Excellent point bro..initially when I interpreted your argument, I was completely against the teams having anything to do with it as most of the time, the disrespect come from the non-dancers...but you have a great point here.

 

[Somi]

Oo no, there are MANY MANY youths that have RESPECT!

I was referring to the ones at Masti.
As you mentioned, the speaker came from India. any speaker, local or not, should receive respect.
Respecting should be a common sense.
Now when alcohol is consumed then i dont know.
The only solution i can think is to cut down alcohol at events.
but i agree with you on the stereotypes on punjabi and the reason of them behaving like this is Alcohol...

 

[Mukandpuria]

About it knowing the culture to dance fully, how can you dance with the best of your ability if you dont even know what your dancing too? I have seen so many people doing lalkaray during a jugni or something and its like, do you even know what your doing? You are yelling during a love song

Harman this is the argument that i have been arguing since day one...that people need to be educated about Punjabi culture because Bhangra comes from that culture. In my eyes its like People are only taking bhangra out of the culture and then throwing away the rest of the culture as if its not important...Turbo from LBC wrote it really well on a previous post. So propz to him

I don't think the problem with people is that they don't respect.....i think they don't understand why they are respecting puggs or the depth of respect that is involved...its different to tell a bunch of new dancers well respect your pugg becuase you will get shit on POL or respect you pugg becuase it has to do with sikhism. Whats sad is that I have actually hurd people say that before...if people understood what happened and why people died for their pug they would know the value behind it....but not everyone takes time to do that.

that is the reason why i want my juniors team to understand the culture before they understand the dance aspect of it

 

[mafzal]

hmm just to feed fire earlier about needing to be educated in Punjabi culture to bhangra or not -

Sounds like you need to know the culture and history to choreo but not to dance or be on a team.



^ Personally I like teaching the culture, background and heritage, but is it doesn't seem absolutely necessary just to get a good dancer for your routine..

 

[Pooja]

I, personally, think it's important to know about the Punjabi Culture and the significance of Bhangra and all aspects of that, but what if one does not have the resources for that...

And by resources I know we have the internet to watch youtube videos, to read these forums, to do our own research but having individuals who can teach you beyond that I think is a crucial thing. And that was really something missing in our team...you can't force everyone to take an interest outside of practice time to learn about bhangra and where it came from and how it's supposed to be done...and not every team has a pendu Punjabi to lead the way...

Sometimes it's not that people don't care about the meaning/culture but there's no one to make them take an interest in it...Basically I'm trying to say that a lot of those things are individual and have to be sought out rather than forced upon. And I kind of have to agree that knowing history/culture is an added bonus for things like expressions/pride/attitude and it definitely helps in developing your team but you don't necessarily have to be aware in order to do bhangra.

 

[Velli]

I would like to see more teams wear their vardiyan properly. in many cases ive seen teams look very clumsy in their outfits. Chadrey arent tied properly, kaintey are hanging loose, no phull coming out of the pugh, thurla doesnt look clean, vests are too big, phuman arent tied properly. On stage this doesnt not look very appealing. Again, not only should there be personality in your performance, but also in your vardiyaan. And when you wear your vardiyaan properly, you acquire a certain swagger. I would love to see this change.

i second this. especially if a team is trying to be tradional, chadre gotta be tied properly with barely the ankles showing even when doing a dhammal or punjab. Also super long vests are sooooooooooooooooooo old skool