Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Bollywood Dance? SERIOUSLY??

Just saw "So u think you can dance?" episode 1. Saw the Bollywood routine choreographed to Jai Ho. What an old fashioned routine! G looked at me after that and said "Who dances like that in Bollywood?". I mean, SERIOUSLY! WHO DANCES LIKE THAT?
The last time I saw those moves in a Hindi film were in the 1950s when Vaijayathimala was dancing. Nothing wrong with that; but is OLD, OOLD, OOOOOOLD!
Someone needs to give the choreographer a Madhuri or Hrithik movie. Even the dances from Devdas, that were supposed to be based in a period era, were choreographed way better.
I know that the choreography was done for a western, really, American audience; but that does not mean it has to be corny. That does not mean you insist the stereotype that the americans have about Indian movies. After seeing the Jazz-done-with-genius routine for the crash dummies; I think that the bollywood routine was done by someone who has not seen a single hindi movie after Sangam and has jumped straight to Slumdog milionaire. If the person who choreographed the dance had seen even a single Amitabh Bachan (who was rightfully shown in slumdog Millionare), that person would have realised what the more contemporary dances look like in Hindi movies. I mean even Rekha in Umrao Jaan had better steps.
As a dancer and a bollywood dancer, I think the routine was a half-baked, half-researched, and stereotyped attempt to show dance from Indian films. I am not even talking about the injustice that was done to the amazing music of Rahman. Lets just leave that to another day, shall we.
Also, the costumes! OMG! What happened to all the publicity that Indian cinema and fashion is gettingnowadays. Did the producers of this show completely miss the train on this one? YEESUH, I shall say.
Neeways, I think I am going to ship some movies to the show producers and ask them if the dance today really said Bollywood, or it was an oldy-wood, done-by-side-heriones-in-BW-hindi-movies, dance done wearing costumes from the time when the world did not know what a cellphone was.
WAKE UP, CATCH UP with us INDIANS and get GROOVY like we do. IT IS TIME!