Evolution Of Bollywood

Bollywood, dance like any other dance style, is forever changing and developing when we look at the last 20 years we can see they have been very influential. Dance styles rely heavily upon the culture that it flourishes within in order to keep up to date. Commercial is always using new and improved music to keep up to date and also new dance styles. Bollywood does the same; Bollywood also relies on the western culture and what is new in that area to keep up to date with their dances. I am going to explore how Bollywood has changed and shifted over the last 20 years to evolve into what we know it to be today.

Firstly I looked into the roots of Bollywood and where it came from. The term “Bollywood” is a new word used to describe traditional “Indian Dance”. The name was given to the film industry first as it was making massive films such as “Slumdog Millionaire” which were very popular within the western world. The Bollywood films were using lots of dancers to create the storyline and to make the films interesting and so this is where the term “Bollywood Dancers” came from.

Bollywood dance has roots from many different dance styles, these included Kathak, Bharata Natyam. These styles then created Classical and Folk Dance across various parts of India and then all came to Bombay (now named Mumbai) and fused together in the new Bollywood films. Bollywood movies started to develop their own signature style of music and dance which fused together India’s classic folk dance with Westernised Hip-Hop, Jazz and Latin. The costume is also massively different. The dancers started wearing long sarees which have many layers and cover the dancer from head to toe

When I looked at the dance video from the film “Ram Jaane”, 1995, I could easily see the traditional aspects of Bollywood dancing showing through. There were many movements that would be considered very traditional, for example the exaggerated eye movements are used to flirt with the audience or in this case the male dancers whom the main women are dancing against. The eye movements were traditionally used in a flirtatious way as the female dancers

were always dressed head to toe in costume, the only skin showing was the feet, the head and the hands. Therefore hands and eyes were used in very suggestive/gestural ways. This section of the dance is almost structured like a dance battle which was influenced by the breakingdance battles happening in the states a few years prior to this film being released. The costume is also quite traditional as it is using rich colours such as gold and silver. However the stomach is also on show and the arms too, this would never have been seen before as it was normally all covered up.

The next video I looked at is the video from the 2005 film “Bride and Prejudice” which is of course an adaptation from Jane Austin’s “Pride and Prejudice”. Costumes for a start are quite different in this dance section as the colours are very different and are all pastel colours and they do not stick to the rich colours of traditional Bollywood dance wear. Also the women are all wearing different costumes instead of the same colours and patterns. The movements are very

large and use the hands a lot, much like traditional Bollywood, but they are now very fast paced and quite intricate a bit like that of jazz and street which are used in the west.

The final video I looked at is a music video from 2015 called “Hey Bro” by Sunidhi Chauhan, Featuring Ali Zafar. The video is completely different to everything I have seen and looked at; the dancing has very limited traditional movements within the choreography at all. The costume is very modern and westernized and doesn’t look like Classic Indian dancing at all. The male dancers are in jeans and a shirt and the women are in very small crop tops which are very tight fitting and very short denim hot pants. Not much flesh is covered at all. The music is also very

edited and mixed together, another trait of the western society.

Looking at the three videos I could see big changes in the three main areas, these being music, costume and choreography. The music has become much more technically enhanced as well as the lyrics being much more suggestive. The costume has become rather limited as it now shoes off a lot of skin and the dancer’s body is the main focus of the video. The choreography is now very suggestive and sensual.

My Sources

Townsend, L. (2012). Bollywood dance explained. BBC News. 10th July. (p.1)