The Bombshells do Bhangra

On what was apparently the warmest May day on record we felt the need to spend an hour doing some high energy dancing.

Aman Singh paid us a visit to teach us a bit about Bhangra dancing. The dance style comes from the Punjab region in Northern India. It is a style of folk dance celebrating and representing the fertile agricultural land of the region. It comprises a variety of moves including a reference to the  swaying of the crops or the sweep of the shearing at harvest and many others.

We were told that there are three golden rules to follow when Bhangra dancing

1. Always start with the left side, although I don’t think we actually found out why that was.

2. We should always bounce our shoulders.

3. Always smile - the dance is full of joy so the last rule was a very easy one to follow.

Aman was dressed in a rainbow of colours, we asked if there was a particular costume required for dancing, he told us that usually the men just had a cloth tied around their waist and for modesty the women often wore Salwar, or big flowing bottoms (Salwar is so much nicer a description). The attire is always colourful and allows easy movement.

The clothing for the dance is called the vardiyaan... I have had to look this up and have found out that the bottom part of the outfit is called a chadr,  and consists of a long recutangular piece of cloth tied around the dancers waist, it covers most of the legs but allows for freedom of movement. The females wear the salwar. Also worn are a vest and a kurta. The kurta is a long sleeved tunic that comes down near to the knees.

Always colourful and often embroidered with intricate designs. Aman also showed us necklaces that are worn for the dance and rumaalan, which are handkerchiefs or scarves tied around the wrists to enhance the dance movements.

The dance is accompanied by the beat of the dhol, or drum, and the dancers will wear bells on their wrists or ankles. We used the Ed Sheeran track Sapphire in the absence of any competent drummers. As you can see from the pictures we all got up and had a go, it was an absolutely exhilarating dance and as you can see from our faces when we weren't concentration, we were laughing and smiling.

Aman runs a class on a Wednesday evening in Southwater, perhaps some of us will go along. The below is a screenshot from Instagram, so please follow them for all the latest updates.