Bollywood dance as genre

The series “Bollywood Hero” starring Chris Kattan and Neha Dhupia started on TV sometime back. I posted about a Flash Dance Mob which happened in Times Square, here. Fellow blogger Shelby, who blogs at BelbCorinne posted a comment on the blog with various video links of “Bollywood” dances outside of India, some done as a genre in TV programmes like “So you think you can dance !”.

I do watch “So you think you can dance” sometimes but must admit have never seen these dance performances. These technically are quite superb. The dancers themselves are so physically fit, that they seem to have no trouble in difficult squatting motions, or those requiring some athletic ability. I don’t think there are many Bollywood stars in India that are this fit. Bollywood dances are a lot of gyrations – and they are a lot. The dance steps change every 10 seconds, and you do not actually realize this until you try and copy the exact movements and discover that they are a lot harder than they look.

However, what didn’t work for me in these technically great performances, was the lack of emotion or “bhava”. Besides that, in most of the typical Bollywood-ian dances, it’s 30% dance and 70% attitude. And if it seems that the dancers are dancing without understanding what they are dancing to, or not in touch with the “meaning” of the song, then it does lose some beauty.

So while these guys (Caitlin and Jason) are technically good, they are for one, a bit too ballet-ish, and appear to not understand the song (which they probably don’t). Plus I’m cringing at her split skirt, and some of her out-there dance movements.

In terms of athletic and dancing ability, I do think there is none better than Hrithik Roshan in Bollywood. His “Main aisa kyun hai” routine in Lakshya is superb. I watched this on a program on TV first being done by the choreographer, Prabhu Deva (who is also a very good dancer) and then Hrithik in the film, and it looked better on Hrithik than on his teacher !

And while am not a big fan of Govinda (that Supreme Pelvis Grinder), he really is a very good dancer – dances like he’s having loads of fun and feeling it. Here’s a fun vintage Govinda-Raveena number :