Bhangra - week one/two

We have now moved on to our second unit of dance which is Bhangra. Bhangra is a type of dance which is slightly similar to Bollywood dancing. When Miss Dolan told us that we would be starting Bhangra dancing after Christmas I was very excited. I had never actually heard about the style of dance until Miss mentioned it to us therefore i was looking forward to trying out a new type of dancing that is very different to what we have and will be doing.
Our first week back after Christmas was spent with theory work. This is good because we had a chance get all our folders neat and filled up ready to hand in.
The second week back was our first practical lesson doing Bhangra. It was also i double lesson which was very handy and helped us get a good start to the unit. To warm up Miss Dolan showed us all some certain movements that are included in Bhangra dancing. An example would be where we spin around on the spot using our hands, we remember this movement by saying 'Screw the light bulb and pat the dog' or 'Pat the dog and put it on the oven'. Using your hands is a very important part of Bhangra dancing, its all about moving small parts of your body at a time, one reason why they like to do this is because it creates more of an effective look. We then got put into groups of three or four. In our small groups we came up with a little dance to give us an idea of how we choreograph Bhangra as well as actually dancing. In the dance we had to include a list of things that Miss Dolan had written up on the board for us:
Hands and Gestures,
Isolations,
Story telling,
Dance in unison,
Lots of facing each other,
Circles,
Coming away from each other and then coming back together.
We also used some oft eh moves that Miss had showed us at the beginning of the lesson. After we all had finished out short group dances we all decided that it will look good if we come together as a class and add a Western style to it. I enjoyed doing this street however i found the small moves and quickness of the moves hard to remember and catch up with as i don't usually do street dance.
At the end of the double lesson Miss Dolan filmed for us what we had achieved so far. It looked very good for 2 hours of work.
The lesson after we carried on with the dance we had been working on. During this lesson we added a few more street elements to the dance to create more of a western flare. As a group we used a lot of patterns and dynamic movements. I think its a great idea that we all come in unison as it shoes us all working together and making the dance look even more effective than it already is.