Dancing to "Jai-Ho" the Oscar winning song from 2009

Is Bollydancing a legitimate art form that amalgamates different dance styles, or is it an erosion of all that is beautiful and classical about Indian dance?

It seems rather puerile to be pondering on any issue other than healthcare, health insurance, or the economy (not necessarily in that order) which have consumed all the oxygen this past year. Yet, as an Indian American I cannot help reflecting on matters which are unique to my kind: Brown matters, of the creative kind which causes a furrowing of the brow and delving into the soul to understand.

After attending one of the “India Nite” events at the local state school, I started to wonder about the issue of projection of Indian culture and how much of a responsibility it is. I was absolutely horrified to find that what was being passed off as Indian culture and heritage was a large number of young girls and boys (some from the local Bharatnatyam dance school) dancing (not very well) to the rhythm and tunes of Hindi film songs, in lines or formations. A strange mixture of belly dancing, rasa, modern dancing with absolutely no meaning or style with a dash of bharatnatyam and/or kathak with a slight touch of erotica. I call the dance form “Bollydancing” since “Bollywood” (Bombay Film Industry) has popularized the format.  Don’t get me wrong, the audience had a blast watching the girls up there. It was like being in a club watching others dance to piped music!

Almost all movies made in India have a spontaneous bursting into this form of song and dance at every drop of a dupatta. It is the most accepted expression of love, sadness, anger, feigned chagrin (you name the emotion) on screen. Someone asked me if there were clubs in India where such dancing was pursued and kids actually spontaneously danced to music thus. I patiently explained that it was not so, (at least not then) and that no one had seen a bevy of beautiful girls or boys dancing in this manner anywhere in India, other than the movies. I reflected upon the iconic dance by Hema Malini as Basanti “Jab tak hay jaan jane jahaan mein nachoongi” over glass pieces just to please the dacoit Gabbar Singh. The irony of an accomplished dancer such as Hema (in character) to be pandering to the hearts of dacoits seemed the exact justification for “Bollydancing”. Yet again, the image of the “Adivasi” girls dancing in Satyajit Ray’s “Aranyer Din Ratre” comes to mind and I am convinced that music and dance is an intrinsic part of our culture, but the format is definitely not the titillating gyrations I watched on stage that night.

One of the inexorable attractions of my birthplace Kolkata, India is the “furious creative energy” as the Wiki puts it. Encouraged by my parents we, siblings spent a considerable chunk of our teen years participating and immersing in it. I remember the Bongo Sanskriti Sammelans of the 70-80s and have sat up all night drinking in the dance of one Yamini Krishnamurty or Swapna Sundari, the Daggar brothers’ dhrupadi style , Girija Devi’s thumries, Ravi Shankar’sitar or Amjad Ali Khan’s sarod. We would return back home after the last notes of Bismillah Khan’s shehnai floated into the smog of the early morning. I attended the first “Book Fair” beside Victoria Memorial when the city was still at one level and one could see the blue skies above. Ma always seemed to procure season tickets and we siblings would take turns to attend “jatra sammelans”, Rabindra Jayanties, Kabi sammelans. Have those early experiences influenced my rejecting “bollydancing”? Was I then very definitely a cultural snob?

The creative arts continue weaving its silky web around my soul and sometimes to escape the whirlpool of the day-to-day news cycle, I light upon the intangible beauty in the rhythm of Indian classical dance (nritya) and exalt in Indian classical music. As a new arrival from India, I stereotypically chose an “Indian art form” in the local “Bharatnatyam“school, as my child’s creative outlet. I had this infinite faith in all things “known”, “understood “or “desi”, hoping that my kid would actually imbibe our cultural heritage through the medium of classical dance. Cutting a long story short, my daughter balked after 2-3 years and never looked back. She hated the instruction and thought it to be oppressive and horrifyingly boring. She absolutely abhorred going up on stage and wriggling around for the benefit of onlookers. I had to back off and was glad later on when she moved on to art as her creative outlet. Thus, I don’t necessarily blame anyone in their choice of a creative outlet. All I am objecting to is the projection of this kind of dance as part of the Indian fabric and culture.

The question that begs to be asked dear reader, is whether there is any “good” in Indian Americans who propagate and push the “bollydancing” style and have made it into a genre’ of its own? Or even the workshops and dance studios in India pushing this dance format as a legitimate art form? Whether the dance is distinctive enough to warrant being raised to a cultural icon? Or is it a hodgepodge of random creative and freestyle swaying of young bodies to the tune and beat of modern music? Does it mock the stereotype it exemplifies … my middle class brothers and sisters back home? Do the subliminal messages in them lead into thinking that aspirations must remain mundane and easy? As dream weavers will claim, it is a legitimate art form that allows humans to escape their harsh reality and sway in forgetful ecstasy in tune with their precarious destiny. Cultural snobs like me might insist it is a systematic erosion of all that is beautiful and classical about the Indian dance form .

Choreographer Yogen with Jay Leno and dancers to "Jai Ho!"

Epilogue: My sister, Roopa writes from Jordan in response to my published Op-Ed in News India Times:  “Then again when you do consider it in history..... wasn't the kathak dance a form of court dancing by courtesans? And didn't the Bharatnatyam also begin as temple dances for rituals and festivals and Priest tempting?

Saswati asks from Sweden, why mothers of young teenage daughters feel so happy seeing their daughters performing on stage to the delight of the obvious ogglers.

Then there is the newly minted doctor Dipa, who has found an ideal guru in her Odissi dance teacher who “dances not to perfect grammar but from her soul and has given her a whole new view of the dance in its creative complexity and quenched her creative soul.

Thus I ask again: Is Bollydancing a legitimate art form that amalgamates different dance styles, or is it an erosion of all that is beautiful and classical about Indian dance?

YOU TELL ME!

The essence of my article has been e-published as an Op-Ed column in News India Times-Apr 23, 2010  on Page 2. Rama Dey-Rao

http://www.newsindia-times.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=23_04_2010_002_003&mode=1

 Pictures from:

http://www.bollywoodstepdance.com/news-details.html?tid=1

http://unrealitymag.com/index.php/2009/09/01/the-10-best-slumdog-millionaire-jai-ho-dance-videos/