BHANGRA JIG

England, 1990, 4 minutes, Color.
A short film by: Pratibha Parmar

A young Asian woman walks through the city of Glasgow, once the second largest city of the British Empire. Her eyes reflect on the wealth symbolised in the concrete textures of the city’s architectural icons. Signs of Empire ever present in the stone freizes, imposing cast iron statues of dead colonialists, ornate pillars and the opulence of the marble interiors of Glasgow’s City Chambers. Against histories of colonial carnage, Asian people build our communities and cultures forging identities of self-affrimation. Against echoes of colonial memories is the living memory of today’s cultures of resistance … through dance and music, young Asian people celebrate desire and self pride.

Bhangra Jig disrupts dominant notions of European culture and offers new meanings of what constitutes national cultures and identities … of what it means to be Asian, British and European.

Bhangra Jig was a 4 minute television intervention piece, commissioned by Channel 4 celebrating Glasgow as the European cultural capital for 1990.