So What is South Asian Dancing?In simple terms, any dance from South Asia, i.e., from Indian or Indian sub continents can be classified under South Asian Dancing.
Is it only one dance?
NO, THERE ARE MANY.. BASICALLY COUNTLESS..
Beauty of South Asian Dancing is in its variety. There are numerours variations in Dancing when you move from one region to another region. Passage of time has also evolved this in various flavours So How do you classify then...I tend to classify various Dance Forms into two categories -
1. Classical - These are ancient dance forms. Few are probably more than 3000 years old (please don't ask me the proof of it :) ). If you visit Indian subcontinents you can see various sculptures in Temples. Bharatnatyam, Kathak, Oddissi among others are notable one. You learn it step by step. These require proper education, dedication and practice to learn. These dance forms are world wide recognized. 2. Regional Folk - These are only specific to one region. If you visit Punjab you may see traditional Bhangara Dance or if you visit Gujarat you will see Gharba dance. These are quite simplistic when compared to classical dancing and not very difficult to learn. As there influence is regional so sometime not very popular. There are hundreds of Folk dance and you might know only few. Wait.. There is Third Dance Form evolving....!!Most of you who have watched any South Asian Movie (mainly Bollywood Movies) will know the relationship of music and dance in each Films. You see the dances in South Asian Cinema.
Since Movies are for entertainment so is the dance within that which is changing based on the taste of Viewers. From a long time, Kathak (classical dance form) played a great role in Indian Cinema. It was started with classical dance form (around 50-100 years back) and then took ideas from Regional and from International dance (Jazz, Salsa etc). This we popularly call as "Bollywood" Dancing. Bollywood = Mix of all the steps from various dance forms added with creativity of the dancer Can I learn Bollywood Dancing then. Answer YES or NO
People are more influenced by the popularity of this Bollywood dancing and try to learn this dancing. But there is no step by step method to learn Bollywood. You can only learn steps for a particular song or music. Someone can teach you the dance on one song and same song can be taught in different way by different Choreographer or teacher. So there is no such restriction. There is Choice and Freedom to do it as you want.
So How to go about learning Dancing then..
I will go back to ancient time when dance was evolved. People may disagree but I believe "Bharatnatyam" is the ancient classical dance form of South Asia. As the time evolves, change of people, invaders came and settled in India, dance took various other classical forms like Kathak, Oddissi, Mohini Attam.
So fundamentally, all those classical dances are the foundations for rest of the South Asian dance forms you see now. AS WE SAY - IF YOU HAVE TO LEARN ANY THING, YOU START FROM FUNDAMENTALS AND MAKE YOUR FOUNDATIONS STRONG. START WITH CLASSICAL Classical dances gives you idea of your Body, its movements, expressions, grace and many more... So, you will need to learn one of the classical dance form at least at the Foundation Level. Being myself Bharatnatyam and Bollywood Dancer Teacher and Educator, I know from my experience, having grasp on classical dance make my life easy learning any other dance form. So EDUCATE yourself with Classical Dance and CREATE new dance be it Bollywood or you can name anything :)
SO WHAT SHOULD BE THE FIRST STEP... |
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