Is It All About Hips?: Around the World with Bollywood Dance

261 Pages·2011·4.46 MB·English

by  Sangita Shresthova

Bollywood dance is flowing off the screen and into participatory culture.
Bollywood is suddenly everywhere, but as Sangita Shresthova notes, it is not
just anywhere. This book shows us that Bollywood’s performance practices get
adapted and adopted on the ground to match the particularities of different
national contexts. Shresthova’s experiences as a dancer and choreographer
allow her to observe and describe these performances with a nuanced attention
to detail, while her theoretical sophistication gives us a larger framework for
thinking about what live performance means in an increasingly global, but
nevertheless always local, culture.
—Henry Jenkins, author of Convergence Culture:
Where Old and new Media Collide
All over the world, and nowhere,
in light and in bodies,
ephemeral but recorded,
move traverse screens that traverse continents. And all this is barely the
starting point of Sangita’s book! It is about dances that emerge from inner
dreamscapes as much as they signal identity as well as multiple social locations
and expectations. I find this powerful reading, in that it makes us pay
attention to how moving images of romance, glamour, pathos, luminosity, and
physical vibrance deeply impact and even shape the daily lives of real people.
Researched with passionate involvement over years, but written thoughtfully
with compassion and drama, you will want to leap and gyrate right through
the rhythms of this book.
—Uttara Asha Coorlawala, Adjunct Professor of Dance at Barnard College
and Alvin Ailey School-Fordham University Dance Program,
New York, USA
An exciting, sensitive, accessible journey through Bollywood dance. In this
book, Sangita Shresthova, a dancer/scholar, has celebrated and contextualised
the global phenomenon of the dance of Indian cinema. It is a comprehensive,
accessible and analytical study which takes you on a journey through the
sociology, psychology, politics and artistry of Bollywood dance across the
world. It proposes new meaning and interpretation of the filmed and live world
of Bollywood dance.
—Mira Kaushik, Director of Aka–demi South Asian Dance UK, London
Her artistic vision, sensitivity to her subjects, and her eye to story-tell tough
real world issues through visual performance is superb. I believe her rather
unusual Czech/Nepali cultural background allows her to traverse nuanced
cultural issues.
—Peter Sellars, theater, opera and festival director

Is
It
    All
About
Hips?

Is
It
    All
About
Hips?
Around the World with Bollywood Dance
Sangita Shresthova
Copyright © Sangita Shresthova, 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
First published in 2011 by
SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd
B 1/I-1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area
Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044, India
www.sagepub.in
SAGE Publications Inc
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Thousand Oaks, California 91320, USA
SAGE Publications Ltd
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London EC1Y 1SP, United Kingdom
SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd
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#02-01 Far East Square
Singapore 048763
Published by Vivek Mehra for SAgE Publications India Pvt Ltd, typeset in
10/13 pt Sabon by Tantla Composition Services Private Limited, Chandigarh
and printed at Chaman Enterprises, New Delhi.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shresthova, Sangita.
Is it all about hips?: around the world with Bollywood dance/Sangita
Shresthova.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Deance—India. 2. Bhangra (Music). 3. Motion picture industry—India—
Bombay. I. Title.
gV1703.I513S57 793.31954—dc23 2011 2011029343
ISBN: 978-81-321-0685-2 (PB)
The SAGE Team: Elina Majumdar, Swati Sengupta and Vijay Sah
Cover Design: Ratna Desai
Cover Photograph: Amish Desai (Featured dancers: Iva Fafková, Jana
Floriánová and Jana Tomášková [Ta-Natyam])
To Bollywood dancers around the world
Thank you for choosing a SAGE product! If you have any comment,
observation or feedback, I would like to personally hear from you.
Please write to me at [email protected]
—Vivek Mehra, Managing Director and CEO,
SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd, New Delhi
Bulk Sales
SAGE India offers special discounts for purchase of books in bulk.
We also make available special imprints and excerpts from our
books on demand.
For orders and enquiries, write to us at
Marketing Department
SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd
B1/I-1, Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area
Mathura Road, Post Bag 7
New Delhi 110044, India
E-mail us at [email protected]
Get to know more about SAGE, be invited to SAGE events, get on
our mailing list. Write today to [email protected]
This book is also available as an e-book.

Contents
Thank you for choosing a SAGE product! If you have any comment,
observation or feedback, I would like to personally hear from you. List of Photographs ix
Foreword by Kabir Bedi xi
Please write to me at [email protected]
Preface xiii
—Vivek Mehra, Managing Director and CEO,
Acknowledgments xv
SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd, New Delhi
1. Introduction 1
Live Bollywood Dance 3
Hindi Film Travels 6
Bulk Sales
Traveling with Bollywood Dance 9
SAGE India offers special discounts for purchase of books in bulk.
We also make available special imprints and excerpts from our 2. Dancing through the Decades: A Bit of Theory and History 12
books on demand.
Song-and-Dance Connections 17
For orders and enquiries, write to us at
Hindi Film Dance Histories 22
Marketing Department
SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd 3. Bombay and the Bodies of Bollywood Dance 34
B1/I-1, Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area
Entering SDIPA 36
Mathura Road, Post Bag 7
Between India and the World 40
New Delhi 110044, India Mediated Bodies of Bollywood Dance 44
E-mail us at [email protected] On Bombay’s Film Sets 51
New Bodies for a New India? 55
Training Bodies at SDIPA 62
Get to know more about SAGE, be invited to SAGE events, get on Back on Set and New Exotic Bodies of Bollywood Dance 64
our mailing list. Write today to [email protected]
4. Under Bollywood’s Big Umbrella?
Bollywood Dance in Kathmandu 71
Filmi Dance in Nepal: Modernity and Nationalism 73
Bombay Disease and Bollywood Dance 81
New Filmi Dance Professionals? 85
Kathmandu’s Dance Bars 90
Sexualized Dances of the Badi in Western Nepal 95
This book is also available as an e-book.
