Bazinga, Thank you for this topic. It is scary to post any thing on this forum but I am hoping I can have a respectful discourse with few of you guys, wether we agree or not.
Today Isha was in her zone. She did what she does best. They had to use their bhramastra and that they absolutely did. There really is no one equal to Isha at the present on JDJ when it come to the form she excels in which is I am thinking western dance with an acrobatic twist. Her postures were perfect. She had wonderful control over her body. Sometimes I feel Salman has learnt so much from her rather than the other way around. LOL! But guess what, as a viewer it did nothing for me. And I feel so sad. This is what I was always worried about Isha. From the first episode they have been showing what they do best but with different props.
Every dance of theirs when I look back, I feel I have seen the same moves again and again but on different concepts with different settings and different costumes. Here is where I think Isha-Salman's strategy is faltering. Their progression graph is a plateau for me. There is no upward slope. Not because they can't dance, in fact quite the opposite, they are at their peak and they have nothing else to show except the same thing which now the audience has begun to view it as monotonous. I remember our Indian captain Dhoni's interview during the world cup where he says it is very important that you do not peak early in a competition such as the world cup because then you will reach your saturation point earlier than you would want to and when the time comes you would be scared to experiment with new batting/bowling combination that could very well be your winning combination. I think that is exactly what is happening with Isha and Salman. They didn't experiment much or take risks with various styles, early on in the competition where even if they had made mistakes they had more of a safety net. Right now if they try different styles and they fail their mistakes would be so glaringly obvious at the same time by not doing anything different, their dancing looks very monotonous. A very difficult place to be in.
This is in direct contrast to two other choreographers that I thought would go to the top 3 and that is Punit and Shampa. Their contestants had strengths and weaknesses too, yet they took risks knowing fully well that their contestants can fall flat on their faces. Since Punit has left the competition I will mention Shampa. She knows her contestant's weaknesses, yet she has challenged the guy to try so many different things. They have taken risks and few times those risks didn't pay off too well either. Yet, when I look at their graph I see progression and not a plateau. As a viewer I can remember their dances (the good and the bad) more distinctly than Isha and Salman's because the latters' all the performances blend with each other. The way I remember Isha's dances is by remembering the props she used. That is so sad because she is such a phenomenal dancer in her area of expertise. And just a quick point about all the different styles Isha has tried out. As a choreographer I feel, I have seen Isha/Salman incorporate their strength steps, that is their beautiful lifts and perfect bends, in pretty much every so called style of dance they have tried out. It was in their tango, in their afro and all the other styles. That is one of the biggest reasons that now the viewers feel that they keep doing the same things over and over again.
I don't want to compare Ritvik and Reshmi to Isha. As much as I have thoroughly enjoyed and loved Reshmi's and Ritvik's performances, they have an unfair advantage. Unlike Ritvik and Reshmi, Isha/Salman have had to slog it out for a longer period of time, come up with new concepts for a longer period of time, and hence also run the risk of coming out with repetitive performances just like the other two contestants Bharti and Gurmeet.
Isha is fantastic at what she does even though I am no longer wowed by her performances. I would rather see someone take risks and try new things and fail and then get up and try again than someone who almost always stays in their comfort zone. But at the end of the day, I admire her talent and I want her to go all the way to the finale.
Veer Hanuman
Anupamaa
