From an interview with Priya Pandya by ARTON GJONBALAJ [Cavalier Literary Couture] – A: Where does Bollywood dance originate?
P: Storytelling—through dance—has been a part of India’s rich culture dating back centuries. Classical Indian dances, such as Bharatanatyam and Kathak, originated in the temples as an artistic way of conveying religious tales and epics. Folk dance styles such as Bhangra originated as a way of passing time in the fields of Northern India while harvesting crops.
A hallmark of the Bollywood, a portmanteau that refers to the Hindi language movie industry, is the lively song-and-dance numbers that pepper almost every film. There’s a certain escapism and joy in these songs that I think everyone can relate to and appreciate as an outlet, even if they can’t understand the language.
As a reflection of popular culture, Bollywood dance fuses elements of classical Indian dances and traditional Indian folk dances with Western dance forms to create a genre of its own. Basic Bollywood steps rely on the relationship between the leg and hip, what often takes students the longest time to master. Once the hip movements become natural, each progressive step is much easier to learn.
Continued at Cavalier Literary Couture | More Chronicle & Notices.
To say that Bharatanatyam, Rock-n-Roll and Kathak originated in the temples is to exhibit a typical British ignorance of other cultures. Kathak originated in the Muslim courts in Iran!