Bhangra, Famous Dance of Punjabis

Still remember the post on Dhad & Dhol earlier?   Well now let’s share something related to the traditional music instruments.  As previously narrated, Dhad is a well known music instrument used in a dance performance called Bhangra.

The dance of Bhangra, a combination of exuberant music and dance, is generally performed to celebrate a harvest.  However, as Ravina, our loyal information provider, explained, it is not common for Bhangra to be performed in the celebration of harvest, here in Malaysia. 


Typically, this dance is can be regularly seen in Punjabi’s weddings and also New Year celebrations.

The Bhangra dance is taken quite seriously in our country, in fact, us Malaysian even has our own association, called the Malaysian Punjabi Bhangra.  Not only providing Bhangra dance and performances for weddings, they also provide performances for parade, events and launches.

Not only famous as traditional celebration of Punjabi, amazingly, it is said that Bhangra also has taken up a notch into the worldwide eyes as another type of dance in the mainstream popularity.

It is also widely accepted as fusion in many other modern genres of music such as house, hip-hop as well as reggae.

In this traditional performance, the men typically wear a piece of cloth wrapped around the waist called Chaadra. The symbolic of a Punjabi man, the Turban or also known as Pagadi is worn to cover their head and most of the time is accompanied by an extra accessory named Turla, a little fan pinned on the Turban.  These make their long shirt and slim pants, the Kurta suit, seem extra-ordinary than usual.  As floods of colors are always the essential element in Punjabi culture, the vests commonly worn by the men during the dance, is also colorful.

As for the ladies, Salwar Kameez, a traditional Punjabi dress is worn alongside with the long pants that are baggy at the top and narrow at the ankles (in simple words to form such imagination ‘the Aladdin pants’). Sometimes, Chunnis, rainbow like colours of pieces of cloth are worn around the neck.

This is a must watch video of modernized performance of Bhangra Dance.  It was taken during a Bhangra dance competition in the United State.  Source of this video is from Youtube.