NEW DELHI: At a time when youngsters are swooning over Bollywood dance style, and training hard to imitate the stars, celebrated Kuchipudi dancer Raja Reddy says the dance in films has lost its charm.
“Bollywood dance is not what it used to be. Now they choose and pick dance movements as per their whims. One no more gets to see dance performances of the likes of Vyjayanthimala.
“She was an excellent dancer. You see her dance performance in ‘Nagin’ movie, it was perfectly based on our Indian dance. The mudras used in the songs are exactly what it should be. Sandhya, Padmini, and even Hema Malini were also good with their dance movements,” Reddy told PTI.
The legendary dancer, who performed Lasya Tandavam, the lyrical dance of Goddess Parvati and Lord Shiva, along with his wife Radha, on the occasion of Mahashivratri, says parents today are worried about the fact that electronic media is exposing their kids to “rubbish” dance forms.
“More than the younger generation, it is the parents who want to teach their children the traditional dance forms.
They come to me and say that they don’t want their children to follow Bollywood dance, belly dance or any other rubbish forms.
“Sometimes even the mother of the children will also join the classes to inspire them. Though I know with much of the time devoted to studies, it has become hard for children to cope up with it,” says Reddy, who runs ‘Natya Tarangini’, an academy teaching Kuchipudi dance.
Not much impressed by the recent trend of dance reality shows, the Padma Bhushan awardee says the only good thing these shows are doing is helping generate new generation’s interest in dance.
“I haven’t watch much of these dance reality shows. But from what little I have saw, I can say that they are helping in generating interest for dance.
“For me it is good only as an initiator, because you just cannot be dependent on them for true teaching of dance. Ultimately, students have to move to classical dance to learn the true art.”
Adding that a reality TV show based on classical dance would be a “welcoming” move, he says getting proper training in the traditional dance forms will help the youth in understanding the “greatness of India”.
“There is no system in contemporary dance. The much talked about fusion can also be attempted only in classical dance. We need to teach students from the alpha base.
“Recently, I was watching some reality show where they called an actress. There were too many flaws in her performance. Now, this is bad. This is precisely my problem with these reality shows.”-PTI
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