Dadhwal 1

Ashima Dadhwal

Sophia Bamert

June 7, 2017

UWP 001

Bhangra: A comparison between Davis Bhangra Crew and Solano Bhangra Girls

Introduction

The goal of this research is to reveal how differences between two different Bhangra

dance teams can cause the teams to expand and become bigger or stay less popular. In an article

about the concept of Bhangra, Sahota (2011) explains that Bhangra is a type of popular dance

music combining Punjabi folk traditions with Western pop music. I was going to focus on the

members in the Bhangra discourse community. Borg (2003) helps understand what a discourse

community is by telling us it is when members share goals and communicate with other

members to pursue those goals. The bhangra teams all share a goal of competing well enough to

place at the competitions. Being a part of the bhangra community, I can see the small differences

others may not be able to see, such as how using social media can affect a team positively and

how the teams practice differently.

In this community, many dance teams have a way of communicating with one another

and with people outside of the discourse community. Many use social media to grab attention of

people outside of the community. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) reveal how social media enable

users to connect by creating personal information profiles, inviting friends and colleagues to

have access to those profiles, and sending e-mails and instant messages between each other.

Having social media allows us to easily spread the word about events and invite friends to places
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they might not have known about before. This makes it easy for people in the Bhangra

community to invite nonmembers to events they may not have known about. In Vries, Genseler,

and Leeflangs (2012) article, they tell how social media creates a good relationship with others

with brand fan pages and how liking and commenting on brand posts reflects brand post

popularity. On Instagram there are many Bhangra pages where fans like and comment on the

dance posts. The page with the most followers, likes, and comments is seen to be more popular

than the pages with less comments, likes, and followers. Similarly for bhangra, having social

media pages can expand the community and popularity of the team. Nonmembers and members

of the community can view and like the posts they see. If a bhangra team uses these methods to

expand their team, there will be a positive effect in return.

Method

I decided to observed two different Bhangra dance teams at one of their practices. One is

the Davis Bhangra Crew who are a bhangra dance team at UC Davis. The other team is Solano

Bhangra Girls who is an all girl team from another city. I watched both teams and the way they

practiced and communicated with each other. After I interviewed a person who was on both

teams to see the ways they communicated with one another and other people outside the

community after practices.

Davis Bhangra Crew

When I first saw the Davis Bhangra Crew team practicing together, the first thing I

noticed was how the team was both male and female college students. They all were ready to

start practice when they arrived to the practice room. The captain of the team split the members

into a couple groups so that they could come up with steps to the music for their performance.

They were given around 30-45 minutes to create a set for the part they were given. Once they
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had enough time, the captain told everyone to come together where each group showed the

moves they choose for the music. The captain and a couple other experienced members carefully

observed and together chose the best choreography. After they picked the moves everyone began

to learn it together. They all helped each other learn it and perfect the moves until everyone

understood how to do it. The more experienced team members demonstrated the steps to

everyone so it was easier for others to see and learn the steps. They continued to work together

for hours until they had the moves down for a small part of the performance.

Solano Bhangra Girls

Unlike the Davis Bhangra Crew, the Solano Bhangra Girls team only had female

members. Instead of having the age group of the team be similar, the teammates had girls as

young as 15 who were in high school and girls as old as 21 who were in college on the team.

When their practice started, I saw how they had a much older, experienced coach who was

teaching the girls. He would start off by grabbing everyones attention and asked them to show

him what they remember from the previous practice. As they were showing the moves, a couple

of the girls would forget or mess up the step they had already learned. The coach then had to

reteach the move they had already learned. Once everyone remembered the previous steps, the

coach began teaching a new dance move to all the girls. Most of the older girls quickly learned

the dance moves they were shown, however some of the younger girls took a longer time to get

the steps down. They would spend a great deal of time learning a couple dance moves with only

one person there to teach each step. They took a longer time to understand how to do the moves.

Interview

I decided to interview a girl, Raman, who had been on both the Davis Bhangra Crew

team and Solano Bhangra Girls team for about a year. I got to ask her what differences she
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noticed between the two teams, what role she played on each of the teams, what ways did each

team advertise themselves to others, and what common goals did both teams share. When Raman

was on the Solano Bhangra team, she had much more responsibilities since she was the oldest

member of the team. She gave practice updates through texts and competition reminders. One

main thing she noticed about the Davis team was how there was no coach. She explained how

the age difference between the two teams had an effect on how smoothly practices went. Since

everyone on the Davis team was around the same age, they all understood their responsibilities

toward the team. This allowed the practiced to be more frequent, last longer, and be more

effective.

When asked about how each team advertises themselves to others, she responded by

telling how the Solano Bhangra team did not advertise themselves to a lot of people. They only

competed at one competition each year, did not spread the word about themselves to others, and

the only people who knew about them was their families who were all from the same city. On the

other hand, she explained how the Davis team had people from different communities supporting

them because people were from different cities. They also had social media to post pictures, had

fundraisers and performances on campus, and did gigs for weddings and parties. The Davis

team expanded out much more than the Solano team. Raman also mentioned how a common

goal both teams shared was winning competitions and getting better as a team.

Analysis

After observing both teams practice and having an interview with someone who has had

experience being on both teams, it was surprising to see the many differences between the teams.

The Solano Bhangra team rarely used social media to communicate with other people or to

spread word about their team. Whereas, the Davis team interact with many different people
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through social media, flyers, and going to different events. Their interaction helped their

popularity and allowed the team to continue to expand for years.

Another main difference between the two teams was the age difference. The members of

the Davis Bhangra team were older than the members of the Solano Bhangra Girls team. Since

the Davis team had college students on the team, most of the dancers knew what to do during

practice, like when to start and focus on what needs to get done, and what responsibilities they

have towards the team. They remembered the steps from previous practices and focused more on

doing the steps right. Whereas the younger girls on the Solano team could not recall the steps

from the previous practices, constantly needed someone to send reminders of what to bring to

completions, and inform them a couple times when they had practices.

Conclusion

As a result, I saw there was a difference between the two bhangra teams. When a team

had members who were around the same age, older, and were more active through social media,

they allowed others to know more about them. I saw how the age difference on the Solano team

cause one person to hold the responsibility for the whole team, whereas on the Davis team

everyone held responsibility towards the team. Having a similar age group on the team allowed

the practices to run smoother and focus more during practice. Another thing that affected the

teams was how much they used social media, flyers, did fundraisers, or went to events to grab

attention from other people who may or may not be in this discourse community. The use of

Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube allows others to view who the team is and what they are

capable of. The attention helped the popularity of the team. These small differences affected the

teams in many ways where one team, Davis Bhangra Crew, is still well known, but the other
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team, Solano Bhangra Girls, it not known by anyone other than people on the team and their

families.

The different genres the Davis team used helped expand their community. The people on

the Davis team went out more to show other people not in the discourse community what

bhangra is. Whereas, the Solano team saw bhangra more as an important cultural tradition that

have only their families that mainly watch them. The written genres such as Facebook posts or

updates, text messages, Instagram comments, and YouTube comments can grow a community.
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References

Borg, E. (2003). Discourse community. ELT Journal, 57. Retrieved from

http://stabler3010.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/58120109/Borg%20Discourse%20Communi

ty.pdf

Kaplan, A. M., Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! the challenges and opportunities

of social media. Business Horizons, 53. Retrieved from

http://michaelhaenlein.com/Publications/Kaplan,%20Andreas%20-

%20Users%20of%20the%20world,%20unite.pdf

Sahota, H. S. (2011). The Search for the essence of bhangra through panjabi heritage.

University of Hudderfield. Retrieved from

http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/17518/1/hssahotafinalthesis.pdf

Vries, L., Gensler, S., Leeflang, P. S. H. (2012). Popularity of brand posts on brand fan pages: an

investigation of the effects of social media marketing. Journal of Interactive Marketing,

26. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1094996812000060