when i started watching the show initially, i was surprised since the major emphasis was on themes(of songs...like sensual, marraige etc) and not dance techniques perse. however in a country where everything is influenced highly by bollywood themes and standards , i guess this was to be expected. however in folk theme episode when the judges talked about dance techniques or forms free from bollywood influence , i was surprised. how do they expect to judge these stars when the technique they follow is so diverse. i read it in an interview or saw it on the show that stars picked out the choreographers and the cds of songs they had to perform on by picking out names from a box. now let us consider the folk dance episode...
kashmiri folk is very sedate and done sitting down, marathi dance is more about expressions and suddeness of movements. rajashthani dance is about movements and energy while gujrati and goan folk is about community and the last dance(which i assume was some form of portugese mixed folk culture of daman area) is truly about technique. how do you judge all these by same standards when the song playing in background are in bollywood speed.
.firstly folk dances are communal in nature (and normally female oriented) not couple based , also they have very simply steps so that anyone can join in and enjoy.think of it as ancient or regional social dance party.to truly bring the complexity of folks they were alloted apoorve/shilpa needed to do garba(which did not fit in with the song and its speed), archana/parmeet needed to do the dancing between the shifting bamboo sticks which meant lot more people on the stage and lot of hard steps(goan or fisherman dance otherwise is quite simple in its steps). how could the energy of rajasthani dance (btw even poonam's hand movements were not pure rajasthani nor were her whirls though she came quite close) compare with kashmiri dance(where the couple sit down and wave thier hands in a certain manner or make certain postures, again there was a problem with the speed of the song). also most viewers end up comparing the original (with star power, great costumes, tons of extras and props, providing a context, executed in cuts and shot with flaterring angles and the camera roving around in the set)with the one on the stage where all eyes are focused on the dancers(this one is bound to be boring in comparison).
this brings me to an another episode...the sensual one. most songs are sensual ,dances are not unless they include a lot of skin display and couple going at each other. what seems sensual on silver screen seems vulgar in a stageshow. how were apoorve and shilpa supposed to dance on "hai rama"(the tempo was too slow and the original was made sensual by urmila in sexy postures in complementing sets) similarly how is one supposed to dance on a song like "roop tera mastana"...the tempo is too slow for dance steps. basically the expressions counted for everything but then this is a dance show is it not.
if the judges want to talk about dance , they should pick out a dance(jive, hiphop, latin,waltz, square dance, indian classical, raggae, ball room) and leave the stars to thier own interpretation of that dance form.instead they pick a theme and stars present the theme in a preset song through a particular or a mixture of a number of dance forms. another issue is that while on the stars get judged, it is actualy thier choreographer' vision that is getting judged. it almost makes me wonder if shilpa /aporve or mansi/rohit would have done better , had they ended up with supriya/sachin's choreographers.maybe the way to level the playing field would have been to get each choreographer work with each star for one round and then move to another couple in another round.
Anupamaa
