Bharatanstyam vs. Hip-Hop

 

Pictures of the two sides: Videos of Traditional Indian Dance and Indian Hip Hop: Introduction: Mock Dialogue: Citations:

 

Pictures of the two sides:

 

MODERN INDIAN DANCER                             TRADITIONAL INDIAN DANCER

            

 

 

The picture on the left is of an Indian woman wearing a costume for modern Indian dance. The picture on the right is of an Indian woman wearing a costume for a traditional dance. The costumes and the poses are not that similar because the traditional one is less Western like.

 

 

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Videos of Traditional Indian Dance and Indian Hip Hop:

 

                    

 

These are videos of people dancing in traditional and hip hop style. There are many differences, like costumes, music, dance moves, but there are also similarities.

 

 

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Introduction:

 

    One part of the Indian culture is dance. It has been changing over the time, but the old dances were not forgotten, at least not widely. The new dances are obviously not the same as the old traditional dances, but they have similarities. The new dances are based of the old ones, which means there were new dance moves added to and some erased from the traditional dance. The new dance moves come manly from the Western dances, from more industrialized countries. The dance is affected by the music, which also changed over the years. The western influence on the Indian music made it more like the western music that is popular at the time. For example there is rock, pop, R&B, hip hop and others, that are more recent influential genres. There are Indian rock, hip hop, pop groups and singers. There are still these kind of melodies that sounds like typical Indian, easy to recognize melodies in all of the songs. There are also typical dance moves that are easy to recognize because they all come back to the very first dances, like Bharatnatyam. The costumes are also very different, the more traditional ones are more complex, as one can see in the videos and pictures. The new ones have simpler fabrics simply put together and not too much jewelry, but the traditional dancers wear more expensive, beautiful costumes with a lot of jewelry all over. Surely, there are conflicts about which dances should be more danced and between older and younger generations. We were interested in this topic, because we like how there are different Indian dances, but they are all somewhat alike and because we figured that there would be enough difference and importance so that conflicts between old and young form. We were also interested on how much the western dances like hip hop has influenced the Indians and if they would rather stick to their own old culture. Since it is related to Bollywood movies with dancing we thought there might be some conflicts in movies too.

 

 

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Mock Dialogue:

 

A young man is trying to get a job as a dancer for an Indian dance ensemble.

 

Cast:

 

Young Indian man

 

Old Indian man

 

 

 

Young: Hello, my name is Devaraja. But just call me “Big D”. I am here for the job interview...?

 

Old: Oh, hello. Nice to meet you, Devaraja, have a seat. I am Jagannatha.

 

Young: It’s a pleasure to meet you.

 

Old: So... when did you start dancing?

 

Young: When I was five.

 

Old: That is very impressive. And what are your preferred types of dances? Kuchipudi, Mohini At-

 

tam?

 

Young: Kuchi... what? Mostly Hip Hop and Funk.

 

Old: I don’t understand.

 

Young: Dances? You were asking me about dances...

 

Old: Could you give my an eample?

 

Young: 50 cent.

 

Old: No, our dancers get paid more than 50 cents, definitely.

 

Young: What? No... I mean... Hip Hop... it’s a type of music.

 

Old: Is it like a modern Kuchipudi?

 

Young: I am not exactly sure...

 

Old: What do you say about Sonal Mansingh’s new CD? Pretty inspirational, huh?

 

Young: What CD?

 

Old: Sonal Mansingh.

 

Young: Who is she?

 

Old: He is the singer of our country! I am surprised you don’t know him! You must have heard of

 

him!

 

 

 

Young: Not really... what band is that dude in?

 

Old: It was a pleasure to meet you. We’ll call you.

 

 

 

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Citations:

 

Modern Dancer Picture:http://www.layogamagazine.com/issue27/images/MeeraModernIndianDance.jpg

Traditional Dancer Picture: http://www.msstate.edu/web/media/releases/pix/2004_10_29__2004_11_03_120011.jpg

 

Modern Dance Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=cQVNHHy_xQA

Traditional Dance Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=diGaU6oVtoo

 

http://www.indialine.com/travel/knowindia/dance.html

 

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