Marquette University Bhangra Academy held its first “A Night of Magic” performance on March 1 in the Alumni Memorial Union ballrooms to provide an opportunity for students to embrace Punjabi culture.
“A Night of Magic” was MUBA’s first performance of the year and it was the group’s first time incorporating props into their routines.
Over 150 guests attended the event and partook in traditional and modern Punjabi dances that ranged from high energy to slow and reserved movements, music and food.
The food consisted of samosas, rice, naan, dal makhani and paneer butter masala. Additionally, a photo booth and dress-up booth were available for attendees to use.
The event began with a performance by MUBA and then attendees were invited to the dance floor to join in the celebration of Punjabi culture.
Jasleen Kaur, a first-year in the College of Arts & Sciences and MUBA Public Relations Executive, said “A Night of Magic” was created to bring people together through Bhangra dance.
“Bhangra is a very energetic dance,” Kaur said. “We hope that the energy we put into the performance can translate to the audience to create happiness.”
Kaur said that Bhangra is for everyone and that the whole idea is to promote unity and conclusiveness through dance.
Gurpreet Singh, a senior in the College of Health Sciences and MUBA President, said the props used were Sapp, made of X-shaped wood that expands and collapses to create a clapping sound, and Khunda, long, five-foot sticks.
“Because this is the first time we’ve used props, we took the entire year to practice for this event,” Singh said. “We wanted to devote extra time to developing our skills so we could create a new routine with props that everyone could enjoy.”
Kaur said that the group practices for two hours twice a week, and the behind the scenes puts more work on certain weeks than others due to scheduling events or ordering materials.
The preparation work of “A Night of Magic” consisted of getting cultural Punjabi food from Indian Delight for the event.
“One of the unique foods we had was the paneer butter masala. It’s similar to butter chicken, but this (paneer butter masala) is a vegetarian option with cottage cheese,” Singh said.
In attendance at “A Night of Magic” was Andrew Dun-Roseman, a first-year student in the College of Engineering. Dun-Roseman said he found the food interesting because it had vegetarian options that had unique sources of protein such as cottage cheese.
Dun-Roseman also works as an audio-visual technician in the AMU and got to assist behind the scenes at “A Night of Magic” in tech support.
“Knowing that I was positively influencing the performance and providing the music as an audio-visual technician was really nice because I thought the dance turned out beautifully with it,” Dun-Roseman said. “The performance inspired me to do some research on my own about the Punjabi culture.”
Singh said she hopes students got to see how exciting Bhangra and Punjabi culture can be.
“We are a very new organization and seeing the great turnout at this event means a lot for the support of our club. We hope it helps us expand throughout the Marquette community,” Singh said.
MUBA’s next performance will be in April and the club is looking to collaborate with Hype Dance Milwaukee for a future performance.
This story was written by Gabe Mannion. He can be reached at [email protected]
