COURTNEY O'SULLIVAN
'Aspiring Dancer'
Bollywood-
Describe the roots of Bollywood and how it has developed in the last 20 years.
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The Pussycat Dolls feat A.R. Rahman - Jai Ho ( TRUE HD )
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The term “Bollywood” did not appear until the 1970s, the name bollywood came from a combination of “Bombay” (which is now Mumbai) “Hollywood” this then collaborated into “Bollywood.” Bollywood dancing started to grow and mainly originated during the 50’s and 60’s. Bollywood dancing was first combined as classical dance or folk dances from different parts of India, the forms being kathak and bharata natyam. Bollywood has developed massively over 20 years from the dancing to how technical and popular films have become. Bollywood dancing films started out like American films with them being in silence and in black and white and in 1913 Raja Harishchandra was the first film to be brought out by Dadasaheb Phalke what is known as the first silent feature film made in India. Bollywood dancing continued into films and musicals during the 30’s and 40’s but it was in 1931 that the first sound Hindi film released was Alam Ara, directed by Ardeshir Irani. The first talking produced film in India was Ayodhyecha Raja, directed by V. Shantaram and was released in 1932. The first Indian color film was produced in 1937, to mark the start of the “Golden Age” of Indian cinema. The Golden Age lasted into the 1960s, and portrays a period in which several of India’s classic and most popular films were created, as well as the time of India’s Independence.
During this time the commercial aspect of films were starting to grow, and a definition between commercial films and new wave films was unofficially established. The cabaret Western dance also influenced Bollywood into a more commercial aspect and developed it more with girl dancers having special roles by being sexy to glamorous songs dressing often skimpily to offer a new style for Indian audiences watching Bollywood movies. During the 1960’s hippie attitude was still in vogue in the west especially in Hollywood movies and they often moved to musicals on Broadway. The trend again continued down to Bollywood and the focus shifted to romantic genres. The Indian social scene was taken into consideration and it also influenced Bollywood as current songs and dances started to take a realistic view with actors like Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna performing on screen. The dances were filled with flashy costumes and over the top sets, the girls wore vibrant colours to represent the story for example a lot of the time bollywood was dances was based around love so costumes would match the story to portray it to the audience. From the 1970’s and 1980’s television was now available and Hollywood not only influenced Bollywood through its dance and music and Broadway culture, but also through the MTV culture it now produced. (Marcoux, 2012.) Western pop music and current dances were now a fashionable trend in Bollywood dances. The men and women would now perform to catchy numbers with hundreds of background dancers, and even if the song was Indian the dance moves were often borrowed from the hip-hop and break dancing culture of Hollywood.
Bollywood dancing have a lot of different moves which are seen in today’s music videos for example there are a lot of hip movements in bollywood which are seen in Shakiras ‘hips don’t lie’ music video. Bollywood in this era is becoming more popular through films and music videos especially when Slumdog millionaire was released and pussycat dolls released there song jai ho. Slumdog millionaire is a film created in 2008 it was co-directed in India and tells the story of a 18 year old born in Mumbai who enters a TV show and goes on to win 20 million rupees. Slumdog millionaire features a lot of bollywood dancing and more audience viewers noticed the bollywood dancing and it’s become more commercialized and popular from films like this. Jamal Malik sparks controversy throughout the film by entering the show and unexpectedly getting all the questions right on the TV show. From the film been released Slumdog millionaire went on to winning over 20 different awards from globe awards to BAFTA awards. The film made $141,319,195 in the U.S and $377,910,544 worldwide; it was released in the cinema for 198 days. (Unknown, 2014) (Foxsearchlightpictures.2009) In terms of bringing bollywood more commercialized pussycat dolls was one of the first to bring out a song commercialized in the style of bollywood. There song jai ho was released in 2009 and their aim was to create a "pop record without deviating from the original melody.”(Unknown, 2014) The pussycat dolls commercialized there costumes by having more of their belly showing and wore skin tight leggings instead of taking the original bollywood saris. They made the movements more commercial and girly and they also kept to same repetitive movements whereas in bollywood they change their movements a lot and formations.