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Shake Your Bollywood
by Vinita Bharadwaj
Apr 30 2008
Apr 30 2008
Indian films are already distributed around the world. Now Bollywood dances are following, as choreographers open studios everywhere from Melbourne to Dubai.
Mukesh Ambani does business on an absurdly large scale. But with his country torn between wealth and poverty, has India’s richest man gone too far? Read More
It's 7 o'clock on a Saturday evening. In a new dance studio in Dubai, a technolike beat begins playing, accelerating as a high-pitched female voice sings in Hindi: "You are my world. Such is my love."
On the wooden floor, accountants, publicists, and other businesspeople dance with abandon. They shuffle their feet, twist and wriggle their hips, and flail their arms, taking cues for the Bollywood-style number from their dance teacher, Rinku, who until recently was working in Mumbai.
It's common knowledge that the Indian film industry is big business—the 800 or so movies released in more than 25 Indian languages each year bring in $1.5 billion in revenue. Bollywood—technically Mumbai's Hindi-language-films business—accounts for a third of releases and is the most visible and popular segment of the Indian movie industry. And as its worldwide audience, now estimated at 3.6 billion, grows, so does the energetic dance style—which mixes folk, classical, and pop influences—it made popular.
Bollywood dance studios, which started popping up in India in the mid-1990s, are now spreading across the globe, to cater to some of the 22 million people of Indian origin living abroad. The lessons have been in demand among high-school and college students for years; now, adults are getting in on the craze.
Rinku teaches at the Bosco Caesar Dance Company, which was opened by a pair of celebrated Bollywood choreographers, Bosco Martis and Caesar Gonsalves, in late 2007. Most of the one million foreign workers in Dubai are of South Asian origin, and the two men, who during the last 17 years have created dances for some of Bollywood's biggest stars, initially thought they could use the school to scout for new, young talent. They were surprised at the enthusiasm they found for Bollywood dance classes among older professionals.
There are now four B.C.D.C. studios in Dubai, offering a total of 14 sessions a week. (Lessons cost $14 each.) While the classes for younger students are more consistently full, adult sessions have also been very popular. "The fact that we've never had an empty session since we started last year is proof that the adults are really keen," Rinku says.
On the wooden floor, accountants, publicists, and other businesspeople dance with abandon. They shuffle their feet, twist and wriggle their hips, and flail their arms, taking cues for the Bollywood-style number from their dance teacher, Rinku, who until recently was working in Mumbai.
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Bollywood dance studios, which started popping up in India in the mid-1990s, are now spreading across the globe, to cater to some of the 22 million people of Indian origin living abroad. The lessons have been in demand among high-school and college students for years; now, adults are getting in on the craze.
Rinku teaches at the Bosco Caesar Dance Company, which was opened by a pair of celebrated Bollywood choreographers, Bosco Martis and Caesar Gonsalves, in late 2007. Most of the one million foreign workers in Dubai are of South Asian origin, and the two men, who during the last 17 years have created dances for some of Bollywood's biggest stars, initially thought they could use the school to scout for new, young talent. They were surprised at the enthusiasm they found for Bollywood dance classes among older professionals.
There are now four B.C.D.C. studios in Dubai, offering a total of 14 sessions a week. (Lessons cost $14 each.) While the classes for younger students are more consistently full, adult sessions have also been very popular. "The fact that we've never had an empty session since we started last year is proof that the adults are really keen," Rinku says.
Pummy Kalsi, an Indian-born international business manager at U.S.-based Polymer Technologies in Dubai, has taken about 10 lessons with his wife, Jyoti, despite his gruelling international travel schedule. "Being Indian, there's a natural connection with Bollywood dancing, which has a greater variety of moves," says 50-year-old Kalsi, who never got beyond his first lesson in salsa. "It's exciting to be able to dance to the original moves of a song at a disco or a party."
Says his wife, "I think the big appeal of Bollywood dancing really hit me when Pummy decided to forgo his golf session to put on his dancing shoes."
In a typical Bollywood film, the characters break into at least five complicated song-and-dance numbers. Anything less could jeopardize its box-office prospects. And while Western culture has always influenced the choreography—in the '80s, Michael Jackson's and Madonna's music videos helped shape group dances in Bollywood films—that influence grew dramatically when the Indian economy began liberalizing in the early 1990s. With the arrival of players such as Rupert Murdoch and numerous cable channels, Bollywood choreographers integrated a range of MTV-style moves.
"Bollywood dance is just a style adapted for a mass audience," says Martis.
Songs from movies have become a key component of Indian wedding festivities. "At a [typical] wedding, where there are numerous ceremonies over at least three to six days, the opportunities for dancing are plenty," says Rinku, who has privately taught sequences to be performed at nuptials by wedding parties and families.
Bosco Caesar wasn't the first Bollywood dance studio to go international. Shiamak Davar, a National Film Award-winning choreographer, set up an institute for the performing arts in Mumbai in 1992. He calls his brand of dance Bollywood Jazz.
Davar has since opened other studios around India, as well as in Canada, Australia, and Dubai. It took some time for middle-class Indians to accept that their children preferred Bollywood dancing over classical forms. "It's taken about 10 years for working professionals to join the movement," Davar said. While young people still make up the bulk of his clientele, there is "definitely a rise in the professionals joining."
The strong success of B.C.D.C. in Dubai prompted the founders to consider expansion. The choreographers will soon take their company to the U.S. and Britain. "We have the partnerships in place and are set to go to London and New York but are just waiting for some final logistic issues to get sorted out," Martis says. They hope to have at least one studio in each city by the end of 2008.
"Bollywood dancing is no longer an object of ridicule," Martis says. "It's serious business and, believe me, there's nothing funny about it."
Says his wife, "I think the big appeal of Bollywood dancing really hit me when Pummy decided to forgo his golf session to put on his dancing shoes."
In a typical Bollywood film, the characters break into at least five complicated song-and-dance numbers. Anything less could jeopardize its box-office prospects. And while Western culture has always influenced the choreography—in the '80s, Michael Jackson's and Madonna's music videos helped shape group dances in Bollywood films—that influence grew dramatically when the Indian economy began liberalizing in the early 1990s. With the arrival of players such as Rupert Murdoch and numerous cable channels, Bollywood choreographers integrated a range of MTV-style moves.
"Bollywood dance is just a style adapted for a mass audience," says Martis.
Songs from movies have become a key component of Indian wedding festivities. "At a [typical] wedding, where there are numerous ceremonies over at least three to six days, the opportunities for dancing are plenty," says Rinku, who has privately taught sequences to be performed at nuptials by wedding parties and families.
Bosco Caesar wasn't the first Bollywood dance studio to go international. Shiamak Davar, a National Film Award-winning choreographer, set up an institute for the performing arts in Mumbai in 1992. He calls his brand of dance Bollywood Jazz.
Davar has since opened other studios around India, as well as in Canada, Australia, and Dubai. It took some time for middle-class Indians to accept that their children preferred Bollywood dancing over classical forms. "It's taken about 10 years for working professionals to join the movement," Davar said. While young people still make up the bulk of his clientele, there is "definitely a rise in the professionals joining."
The strong success of B.C.D.C. in Dubai prompted the founders to consider expansion. The choreographers will soon take their company to the U.S. and Britain. "We have the partnerships in place and are set to go to London and New York but are just waiting for some final logistic issues to get sorted out," Martis says. They hope to have at least one studio in each city by the end of 2008.
"Bollywood dancing is no longer an object of ridicule," Martis says. "It's serious business and, believe me, there's nothing funny about it."
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