An Introduction to Indian Dance in Great
Britain - Ash Mukherjee

Ash, Image Copyright JPMedias
Indian dance has
gained immense popularity in the UK in recent years. Initially through a phenomenon known
as Bollywood, it has burst beyond its classical forms to entertain and inspire
the British public. The variety of dance forms it uses is staggering and yet an
Indian essence always remains inherent in Bollywood dance routines, whatever
style it is performed in.
Nowadays, the UK has a whole range of
Indian dancers. There are British Asians of full or part South Asian descent
working within the Indian dance disciplines of Bharata Natyam, Kathak, and
Odissi. There are dancers directly from the Indian subcontinent who have taken
that big leap to the West over boundaries and bridges.There are also artists
who are not of Indian descent who are immersing themselves in the art of India,
blurring borders and integrating cultures. All are working hard to keep their
art alive in its exciting development.
The cross cultural
phenomena sweeping across Britain today owes its roots to the pioneering works
of Ram Gopal and Uday Shankar, classical Indian dancers of distinction working
in the first half of the 20th Century. Their respective collaborations with
famous ballerinas - the British Dame Alicia Markova and Russian Anna Pavlova –
were defining events years before their time.
In his time Ram
Gopal, with the encouragement of Mahatma Gandhi, thrived in making Indian
Classical Dance relevant to Western audiences. Indian dancers now face the same
challenges in utilising this ancient art form and presenting it in innovative
ways, so that it is still relevant to and reflective of, the ever changing and
vastly expanding multicultural society of today
In the mid to late 19th Century, as
the West began colonizing the East, Europe fell under the spell of India and
composers such as Bizet and Delibes created The Pearl Fishers and Lakmé.
The ballet La
Bayadere was choreographed in 1877 by the French master, Marius Petipa in St.
Petersburg, Russia. About an Indian temple dancer’s doomed love affair, it was
based loosely on Shakountala, a poem by Kaalidaas, and one of the notable
crosscultural cocktails of that period. Although it created a look that is
generally regarded as kitsch today, it was surprisingly accurate in its ability
to capture the authenticity of spirit in Indian philosophy.
Not very much unlike a Bollywood movie. In fact
the ballet, has all the ingredients of a Bollywood movie from the 1940s or
‘50s. If one looks at the purpose behind the creation of Indian Classical Dance
and Bollywood films, one finds that at its root, it is one and the same.
To grasp this point in its entirety it is necessary to understand the
very reason why Indian Classical Dance was codified in the first place. In
Bharata’s Natya Shastra, the treatise on Indian Classical Dance, the origins of
the art was very clear.
“When the world was
steeped in disillusion, Brahma the Creator was asked by the people to create an
Art that was to entertain and enlighten, an art that was to be seen and heard
by all, as the Vedic Scriptures were too grave and ambiguous to be understood
and enjoyed by one and all.” - Bharatiya
Natyashastra
Therefore
came the creation of dance performance for the masses, which is the Bharatiya
Natyashastra, a sacred treatise on dance.
Vaslav Nijinsky as quoted by Romola his wife in his
biography predicted that the future of dance would be film, as this would be
the medium that would bring the art form to the masses.
Bollywood films as a medium were to do just that. In a vast subcontinent
like India, Bollywood at one time was the sole ambassador of all the classical
forms especially to dancers who did not have access to see and learn these
classical forms because of their geographic location or cultural background.
Bollwood films are now doing that on an international level.
The Bollywood Phenomena
Dancing
is crucial to Bollywood movies, because dance is such an important part of the
Indian psyche. The Hindu faith which is regarded as being a way of life states
that the very Universe was created through the dance of Lord Shiva, and that
its preservation, destruction and further creation is all part of the
harmonious dance of Lord Shiva as Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance.
The audience of Indian dance is now worldwide, a result of a fascination
with the Orient which inspired Ruth St. Denis and her depiction of the Nautch
girls, and Ted Shawn’s dances based on Nataraja the lord of the dance.
This
flirtation continued in Bhakti by Maurice Bejart, which focused on the
devotional aspect of Indian Art and mythology.
British
choreographers like Shobhana Jeyasingh and Akram Khan present the universality
of Indian Dance by stripping it of its ‘exotic’ and mystic content.
The pure escapism of
an Indian Bollywood film is designed for everyone - from the struggling farmer
in rural Bihar to the successful Indian IT Consultant in Los Angeles and
everybody else in between, catering to one and all, and inspiring Sir Andrew
Lloyd Webber to mount an oriental extravaganza like Bombay Dreams, which
exploits the universal themes of love, betrayal and ambition.
The Indian subcontinent is a big melting
pot of different races, religions, cultures, and food habits. It is a place
where any one ingredient can be introduced and seamlessly integrated with yet
another ingredient to create varying degrees of success. One only has to see
the number of ways a saree can be draped in different parts of India or a pizza
being reincarnated by an Indian chef to include tikka masala, vindaloo and
tandoori flavours.
After the advent of cable TV in India
in the early ‘90’s Bollywood films found that it had to face the demands of the
MTV generation. Bollywood dance which used to be a potent concoction of Indian
Classical Dance Forms and Folk dance forms in the 30’s, and had adopted the
Charleston, jive and twist in later years, now started adopting hip hop, break
dancing, Latin dances like salsa and cha cha, and Arabic dance styles.
One of the most
interesting examples of such a hybrid mix is that of break dancing, isolation
technique and popping and locking.Jack Cole, the father of modern jazz dance
borrowed a refined use of isolation from Indian Classical Dance. This technique
greatly influenced Bob Fosse in his own choreography who had worked with Jack
Cole.
Michael Jackson
openly gave homage to Fosse by portraying the spot lit top hat and white gloves
look, and blended it with the then emerging street dance styles in Los Angeles
of popping and locking.
Prabhu Deva, an actor and dancer in
Bollywood whose style and moves were influenced by Michael Jackson, aimed to
bring the lost MTV generation back to viewing Bollywood films by creating a
further hybrid style by choreographing and dancing to Bollywood music.
Thus, the refined sense of isolation
borrowed from Indian classical dance by Jack Cole in the 1930’s had finally
completed its circular journey around the globe and had returned home through
Prabhu Deva in the 1990’s.
Acting is known as Abhinaya in India.
Nadikeshvara the author of Abhinaya Darpan, or the Mirror Of Gestures defines
Abhinaya as carrying the play toward the realization of its meaning. This is
what the dancer/actor has to do by studying the movements of the eyes, head,
mouth, neck, hands, fingers and body.
Bollywood dance, although more
populist in its content however is often set to songs which are potent with
meaning. Hence the dance, while being fun and energetic and an amalgamation of
various styles from all over the world, has to retain its original gestural
language, in order to express the lyric content of the song, which will then
bring the story or mood of the film to the desired level. In Bollywood movies,
the dancer or the actor has to feel, interpret and act the storyline or the
lyric content of the song to take the story forward.
Training in Indian Classical Dance
is, therefore, important for the Bolywood dance student not only because of the
discipline and focus that classical dance training can give, or for its
practice of the various hand gestures and facial expressions. It is crucial
because Indian classical dance carries with it a deep rooted meaning of the
philosophy behind Indian Art which is to dance the truth in absolute humility,
while being entertaining and enlightening at the same time.
This is where the similarity lies with
Bollywood, in that Bollywood dance does not take itself too seriously, it is
there to entertain primarily, and while it also serves as escapist
entertainment at times, in the process it can manage to entertain and enlighten
by depicting the Absolute Truths that the audience wish to see, hear and feel
repeatedly.
It has then served its purpose only
too well. Indian Classical Dance and Bollywood dance was a reflection of
multicultural India. We need to acknowledge that it is now a reflection of
multicultural London and also the rest of Great Britain.
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