Taking
Steps to Understand Bollywood
Bollywood.
The term, a conflation of Bombay
(the former name of Mumbai, where the Bollywood industry
is based) and Hollywood, elicits images of melodrama on the
big screen, juicy roles for India’s biggest stars
and bigger-than-life song-and-dance sequences.
Rhea Kewalramani ’12 performs Indian dance with the
Smith South Asian dance team, SC Masti. |
For those
enamored of the latter, an Interterm course this week is
teaching the dance steps popularized in some of the biggest
Bollywood blockbusters.
Rhea Kewalramani ’12, who grew up
in Mumbai, proposed the Interterm course to share her fondness
for the Indian film genre.
“Bollywood has always been a big part of my life and culture,” says Kewalramani,
a film major who has worked on the sets of Bollywood films. “I wanted to share
my love for the culture. I thought the best way to help people understand the
films would be to introduce them to the songs.”
Kewalramani is teaching her
students some of the dance sequences to songs such as Sajnaji
Vaari Vaari, Munni Badnaam and Ainvayi
Ainvayi among others.
She shows clips of the dances from the movies alongside her
teaching to demonstrate the music’s importance in advancing the story.
“I’m hoping that the dances will help them understand the storytelling nature
of the songs, as well as really help them engage with the movies more,” said
Kewalramani.
As part of the course, Kewalramani
is hosting optional movie screenings during the week, including
a Bollywood documentary titled Larger
Than Life, as well
as influential films Om Shanti Om and Rang
De Basanti.
Kewalramani
has performed Indian dance on numerous occasions, she says,
and is a member of the Smith South Asian dance team, SC Masti.
“I have always enjoyed dancing and because I never trained in any form of classical
dance, popular Bollywood numbers have always been more my style,” she says.
Though,
she admits, Bollywood film is not everyone’s taste, the Hindi film brand is enjoying
rapidly spreading success, in the United States and around the world.
“Bollywood films are made in a style that is too loud and fantastical for some,” she
explains, “but then again those are the factors that make it so different and
appealing to many. Bollywood brings various art forms like dance, music, theatre,
and film together in a way that make it very entertaining.”
This week, she attempts to impart
a closer understanding of the grand art form to her students.
“Mostly, I want them to have fun while exploring Bollywood,” she says. |
