Aaja Nach Lai [Come Dance]: Performing and Practicing Identity Among Punjabis in Canada (Analysis of Bhangra and Giddha Performances by Jat Sikhs‪)‬

Cet article traite des representations de danses folkloriques du Punjabi : la bhangra et la giddha dans differents contextes canadiens. Apres avoir introduit la notion d'identite punjabi, cet article offre une breve description des formes que revetent ces danses, de leurs origines agraires et de leurs natures sexuees, ainsi que du type d'evenements au cours desquels ces genres de danses sont performes chez les Punjabis canadiens, et plus specifiquement les Jat Sikhs. Je defends l'idee que non seulement ces danses expriment et entretiennent l'identite punjabi dans des contextes diasporiques, mais egalement que ces identites font reference a un imaginaire rural jat qui se construit activement au travers de la danse et de la musique en reponse au phenomene de migration urbaine et transnationale. Cet imaginaire rural est usurpe par l'occidentalisation grandissante et la popularite croissante de la bhang dans la diaspora non jat du sud de l'Asie, ce qui remet en question le role crucial, le sens et l'identite jat. This article discusses the performance of Punjabi folk dances bhangra and giddha in some Canadian contexts. After introducing a notion of Punjabi identity, the article provides a brief description of these dance forms, their agrarian origins and their gendered natures, as well as of the types of events at which these dances are performed among Canadian Punjabis, and specifically, Jat Sikhs. I argue that not only do these dances express and maintain Punjabi identity in diasporic contexts, but that these identities refer to a Jat "rural imaginary" that is actively constructed through dance and music in response to the displacement of urban and transnational migration. This rural imaginary is usurped by bhangra's increasing Westernization and popularity in the non-Jat South Asian diaspora, thus raising challenges to Jat centrality, meaning, and identity.