It’s finally finished! My ode to the wonders of South Indian (specifically Tamil and Telugu) film dancing! Enjoy this little compilation (er, EXTRAVAGANZA!) of the collective awe-inspiring massalicious moves of Bharath, NTR Jr, Prabhas, Vikram, Mahesh Babu, Lawrence, Vijay, and Prabhu Deva (and a smidgen of Arya!).
Child Artistes & Tamil Cinema (Galatta Cinema Article)
Monday, April 19, 2010
Thanks to the fantastic sidebar images on the Film Zest blog, I have discovered there is *another* South Indian film magazine in addition to SouthScope called Galatta Cinema. Intrigued, I searched for more information on it and found their official website and scans of the magazine in e-book format! One of my favorite features of SouthScope is the handful of articles on evergreen and black and white South Indian cinema. It's so hard to find any information on these older films online, and I feel like I'm discovering hidden gems when I come across resources on the subject! Would Galatta have these kinds of features, I pondered!
Pondering led to purchasing a few old e-book issues, and low and behold there are a few articles on classic cinema! Yay! Even better, there are some gorgeous pics of Sneha and Padmapriya which I am girlcrushing on somethin' serious. The one detractor was that some of the scans have pixelated, fuzzy picture quality on sections of the pages, but I'm willing to put up with that and am having lots of fun going through all the features and slick pics.
Pondering led to purchasing a few old e-book issues, and low and behold there are a few articles on classic cinema! Yay! Even better, there are some gorgeous pics of Sneha and Padmapriya which I am girlcrushing on somethin' serious. The one detractor was that some of the scans have pixelated, fuzzy picture quality on sections of the pages, but I'm willing to put up with that and am having lots of fun going through all the features and slick pics.
How South Indian Films Stole My Heart
Monday, April 12, 2010
It really all started with Devdas, the extravagant Hindi period piece that was my third Indian film viewing experience. One of the main things I noticed in it and other later Hindi films was the distinct, beautiful dance styles of the actresses. Hands gestured in certain ways and postures and movements were defined along a similar plane. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, and it took a while before I discovered the connection of filmi Indian dance with Classical Indian Dance.
I had never seen anything as beautiful and as mesmerizing as Classical Indian Dance. I still haven't. It's vocabulary of movement was unlike anything I had seen, and I couldn’t believe that modern choreographers in the US were not more familiar with these forms and all the wonderful motions they prescribed. The dances I watched intently were so grounded and earthy. Rows of bells/ghungroos on the feet added another dimension to the dance as artists, particularly in Kathak, created intricate aural soundscapes with only their feet!
Dance in its Indian incarnation was a whole body experience: matching the rhythm of the music with the feet, creating beautiful pure dance lines and geometric angles with the body, telling stories with the gestural language of the fingers and hands, communicating emotion with the eyes and face… stunning. The carnatic/hindustani musical accompaniment was obviously incredibly complex with its intricate meters and percussion. On top of that, the costumes and fabrics and temple jewelery were the most beautiful thing I’d laid eyes on, surpassing even Balinese dance. I wondered- how had I never seen these art forms before? Artists like Alarmel Valli, Nahid Siddiqui and Sujata Mohapatra blew me away. The theatrical world of Kathakali and other Malayalee dance forms could take a lifetime to study. I became so obsessed that I had an entire YouTube channel solely devoted to uploading recent and archival clips of famous exponents of the classical dance forms. Unfortunately, my channel later got shut down due to a copyright claim. I like to dream that it's still floating out in between some microchips somewhere...
I had never seen anything as beautiful and as mesmerizing as Classical Indian Dance. I still haven't. It's vocabulary of movement was unlike anything I had seen, and I couldn’t believe that modern choreographers in the US were not more familiar with these forms and all the wonderful motions they prescribed. The dances I watched intently were so grounded and earthy. Rows of bells/ghungroos on the feet added another dimension to the dance as artists, particularly in Kathak, created intricate aural soundscapes with only their feet!Dance in its Indian incarnation was a whole body experience: matching the rhythm of the music with the feet, creating beautiful pure dance lines and geometric angles with the body, telling stories with the gestural language of the fingers and hands, communicating emotion with the eyes and face… stunning. The carnatic/hindustani musical accompaniment was obviously incredibly complex with its intricate meters and percussion. On top of that, the costumes and fabrics and temple jewelery were the most beautiful thing I’d laid eyes on, surpassing even Balinese dance. I wondered- how had I never seen these art forms before? Artists like Alarmel Valli, Nahid Siddiqui and Sujata Mohapatra blew me away. The theatrical world of Kathakali and other Malayalee dance forms could take a lifetime to study. I became so obsessed that I had an entire YouTube channel solely devoted to uploading recent and archival clips of famous exponents of the classical dance forms. Unfortunately, my channel later got shut down due to a copyright claim. I like to dream that it's still floating out in between some microchips somewhere...
