Bollynatyam on Cityfolk

Thinking back over the past years of Bollynatyam, I found this short documentary on City Folk that featured some Bollynatyam dancers.

When I watch it now, I do see it as a very candid behind the scenes look at my life.

Enjoy.

My Heart Swayed: Dola Re Dola

In 2002, choreographer Saroj Khan received Filmfare’s “Best Choreography Award” for her choreography of the “Dola Re Dola” in the film Devdas (2002). Colloquially referred to as the “Oscars of India”, the Filmfare Awards are generally recognized as one of the most prestigious honors in popular Hindi cinema. The awards are distributed based on a poll by the readers of Filmfare magazine and were constituted in 1953. A testimony to the growing influence of choreographers in popular Hindi cinema, the Best Choreography Award was first awarded in 1988 and that year Saroj Khan took home the prize for her choreography of “Ek Do Teen” (Tezaab, 1988).

While the scale of a film’s budget and consequently visibility achieved through star casting and extensive publicity contribute indirectly to the selection of dances for the Best Choreography award, the fact remains that Filmfare awards provide public recognition for dance choreography in popular Hindi films.

The “Dola Re Dola” dance sequence dominated Devdas’ (2002) publicity efforts, press reviews, and theatrical trailers. The influence of the two lead performers in the sequence, Aishwarya Rai (as Paro) and Madhuri Dixit (as Chandramukhi) as a guarantee of success cannot be underestimated. Selected as Miss World in 1994, Aishwarya Rai is recognized as an unofficial cultural ambassador for India. Madhuri Dixit is respected for her refined acting abilities. Both female stars have been recognized for their dancing skills, and their "classical" dance training is often cited as testimony of their professionalism in film related media. The spectacular draw of these two actresses dancing together in a fast-paced, glitzy sequence was an important consideration when this new song and dance "number" was inserted into Bhansali’s remake of the Devdas classic. At the same time, this dance, masked as a spectacle, engenders an alternate space at once connected to and distinct from the film narrative.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s remake of Devdas (2002), adapted from Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s novel with the same title, deviates from the original story by adding a meeting between Devdas’ first love Parvati or Paro (Aishwarya Rai) and Chandramukhi (Madhuri Dixit), the courtesan with whom he develops a relationship. This meeting results in a public duet performance of “Dola Re Dola”, which is witnessed by Paro’s in-laws and other guests at the Durga Pooja celebration. Significantly, this meeting between Chandramukhi and Paro did not occur in previous filmed versions of Devdas including Bimal Roy’s Hindi version released in 1955 and Dilip Roy’s 1979 Bengali language version.

The dance, which takes place in the home of Paro’s in-laws, becomes a public demonstration of affinity between the Paro and Chandramukhi as it allows for a temporary equality to emerge between the two women usually precluded by their opposing social positions. Paro is the wife of a respected landlord; Chandramukhi is a courtesan. The dance facilitates the meeting of the two women on the pretext of a duet performance during a religious festival, despite their class differences. In narrative terms this temporary equality helps validate Chandramukhi’s love for Devdas, even as Paro symbolically relinquishes her hold over him. The dance postpones the inevitability of tragic events to come and follows a scene in which Devdas, the object of affection for both women, submerges his head in water, foreshadowing his eventual demise. In the following scene, Paro is sentenced to lifelong confinement on her husband’s premises as punishment for her persistent love for Devdas and her friendship with Chandramukhi.

Chandramukhi is a courtesan and represents a recurring character in popular Hindi films. Like courtesans in films like Pakeezah (1971), Mughal-E-Azam (1960) and Umrao Jaan (1981), Chandramukhi belongs to a long tradition of women trained in the dance of "refined" seduction. As she commands a certain power in society, she is respected for her mastery of singing and dancing, yet her profession as an entertainer and association with prostitution places her on the outskirts of society. Her tragedy is confirmed through her impossible longing for respectability and the unattainable love of a single man. Chandramukhi’s previous dances, choreographed by Kathak Pandit Birju Maharaj, demonstrate her skills as a performer as well as her affection for Devdas. The opulent setting and movement content of Madhuri Dixit’s performances differ from Chandramukhi’s dances in previous filmed versions of Devdas (1955, 1979), which tended to stress the seductive elements of the courtesan’s dance. Her technical mastery of complex rhythms are accented through rhythmically coordinated camera cuts, and ability to emote through facial expression and gesture are emphasized through close ups. The camera moves with her, accentuating rather than fragmenting her movement.

For Paro, respectability would not normally support a public performance and even less so in the company of a professional courtesan. Though Paro dances earlier in the film, the dances take place in the privacy of her home or in dream sequences. Earlier in the film, Paro’s mother was humiliated for performing publicly on behalf of her daughter at Devdas’ house.

As Paro and Chandramukhi perform together to express their love for Devdas, their backgrounds dictate acceptability of such a public display. Chandramukhi's performance is socially acceptable; Paro’s participation is not. By partaking in the same performance, Paro and Chandramukhi complicate a polarity of respectability and disrepute. Despite the social constraints they face as courtesan and married woman, Chandramukhi and Paro clearly communicate their camaraderie and understanding by using dance to create their own, shared realm. The identical costumes worn by Paro and Chandramukhi strengthen their perceived relationship.

During the recurring refrain, the two women dance in unison to the lyrics: "Hey Dola Re Dola˛ re dola re dola" (Hey, I swayed, I swayed, I swayed), "Haai dola dil dola mann dola re dola" (Oh, my heart swayed, my spirit swayed). The movements incorporating a gentle sway of the hips, with one arm behind the head and a look off to the diagonal, stress that the sway of the women’s hearts, caused by their love for Devdas, is what allows and simultaneously forces them to perform. Female dancers in the foreground and male dancers in the background echo their movements and suggest that the "Dola" or "Sway" of the heart motivates their dance as well. The slow cyclical motions of the camera complement the dancers’ movements.

More than spectacle, the "Dola Re Dola" dance sequence validates Chandramukhi’s love for Devdas and sets up the loveless life of physical and emotional confinement that becomes Paro’s punishment for the rest of the film. The choreography executed by Paro and Chandramukhi alludes to a more abstract and transient realm that permits the expression of subconscious, or hidden, emotions and desires in ways that influence plot and character development. At the end of the dance, this temporary equality and the possibility of this ideal are shattered. But both women retain a degree of stoicism in the face of the adverse consequences of their public display as the temporary realm, that fulfilled its function by allowing a courtesan to perform with a married woman, disintegrates.

Bibliography:

1. Dhareshwar, Vivek and Tejaswini Niranjana.1996.”Kaadalan and the Politics of Resignification: Fashion, Violence and the Body” in Journal of Arts & Ideas. no. 29. (http://dsal.uchicago.edu/books/artsandideas/toc.html?issue=29)

2. Prasad, M. Madhava. 1998. Ideology of the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction. Oxford University Press: New Delhi.

3. Thoraval, Yves. 2000. The Cinemas of India. Macmillan India Limited: New Delhi.

Pyar Kiya Tho Darna Kya

Without doubt, this is still by far one of my favorite Hindi (or rather Urdu?) song-and-dance sequences. The overlapping of Madhubala's poignant emotionality and Gopikrishna's virtuosity sets up this sequence as a truly historical moment in Indian cinema.