Remember the song “Dhak Dhak Karne Laga…”? of course you do! Madhuri’s epic performance is just too good to be forgotten. Whenever someone mentions “Dhak Dhak”, the song starts playing in our head along with Madhuri’s dance! We came across this video of two girls belly dancing to the song by Banjara School Of Dance and trust us they are totally killing it! Our heart has started beating faster just watching them dance. These girls, Jyotsna and Pragnya, have recreated the song and they have done it brilliantly well. Well, we just want to watch this dance performance again, so till then you go and watch the video…
THE SUMMER PROJECT was given to the intermediate students of Banjara School Of Dance. Their task was to research various subjects in the field of bellydance/ fusion. Each duo was given a subject that was completely out of their comfort zone. On a better day they would have probably made different choices for their projects. But what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger, right? In total 9 projects were presented and each one was very different from the other. An important point to keep in mind is that in some of the projects the dancers actually had very minimal technical knowledge of that style, they had to research, self study, interview international/national dancers and put together their interpretation of that particular subject. In no way are we suggesting that the dancers are proficient in the particular style. Neither do they take sole credit for the project, as it was only possible with the help of all the resources/ people included. A very huge THANK YOU to everybody who made this possible. Feedback and criticism will be highly appreciated, as that is also one of the parameters that will help each dancer grow.
BELLYWOOD
So what is bellywood? It is the language between Bollywood dance and bellydance where the lyrical interpretation of a Bollywood track is enacted through a fusion of techniques from both styles of dance while keeping the element of drama alive. The costume for bellywood in this piece is inspired by the saree look from the 90’s era of bollywood yet keeping it a two piece bellydance style costume for movements to be visible. Bellywood is a new, developing style. As we are all aware bollywood dance is simply interpreting music from the bollywood industry and using the technical base of any existent dance form to create choreography accordingly. For eg: The evolution of bollywood dance has seen pieces that were more classical or semi classical back in the day, progressing into indozjazz in movies like dil to pagal hain and taal, and in today’s mainstream bollywood the influence of hip hop and other western styles is very highly visible. This piece is an attempt at using both styles in typical madhuri flavour, which does not mean that this is the only way of interpreting the music. Bollywood is vast and very open to change, with the growth of bellydance as a form of art the influence has become more visible in the industry and we’re hoping for bellydance to receive the right kind and more attention in India. Through bellywood that seems a true possibility.
