Series Kick-Off: Remembering Film Choreographers

Over the past few months, I’ve been working on a project to identify the choreographers and masterminds behind all of the classical-oriented film dances I’ve featured on my blog to date.  It had dawned on me that I’ve never given enough credit, or even thought, to the choreographers behind all of these wonderful dances.

Umrao Jaan and Chori Chori

The result of my research has been absolutely fascinating.  A relatively small group of people was responsible for most of the classical film dances I’ve featured on this blog, which as a whole forms a collection that I think represents most of the best classically-oriented dances in Indian films (though there are still some I haven’t yet covered, especially of Kathak).  Not only was a small group responsible, but also that group was comprised largely of surprisingly eminent and respected traditional practitioners of classical dances: traditional Bharatanatyam nattuvannars from hereditary families (and some the products of the institution Kalakshetra) for Tamil and Telugu films, Kuchipudi gurus/nattuvannars for Telugu films, renowned Kathak dancers and gurus for Hindi films, and Kerala Kalamandalam trained artists for Malayalam films.  Essentially many of the kind of people that you wouldn’t expect to associate with the glamorous cinema world.  Expanding beyond this small group, one also  finds classic and modern film choreographers who created some beautiful work and, of course, classical dancers themselves who designed their own dances to stunning effect.

Therefore, this post serves as the series kick-off or introduction! In the series, I plan to not only show examples of the many film dances but also examine the surprising involvement of the traditional community and pull together some engaging research I’ve found.  Here’s a rough outline of what I envision the series will look like, with some teasers:

• Bharatanatyam Nattuvannars – Even the great stalwart Meenakshisundaram Pillai had a stint in films! And guess who Sayee-Subbulakshmi’s guru was...
• Kuchipudi Gurus/Nattuvannars – All the golden 70s-90s Kuchipudi film dance hits can be attributed to just two people...
• Kathak Gurus – Some of the film-style Kathak dances closest to authentic Kathak were created by, you guessed it, big-name, authentic Kathak gurus... 
• Kathakali/Kerala Dance Gurus – It’s all about the Kerala Kalamandalam...
• Dancers – Roshan Kumari, Shobana, Sridhar…
• Choreographers – Some of Hindi cinema’s most well known, artistic dances can be attributed to another small group of people!  Heeralal earns my eternal devotion...

The Goal: Bringing Awareness to Regional Film Dances

But I’m hoping for more than just reporting on the results of a painstakingly-researched pet project or offering a way to locate similar choreographies from a known enjoyable dance.  I’m hoping to contribute to information/research on dance in Indian films that moves past the narrow-focus of Hindi films and expands to cover India’s most prolific “regional” film industries outside of Mumbai.  Because, let’s face it, if you want to see some good classical-inspired dancing in Indian films, you need to head down south, by and large. 

The general lack of awareness of the rich, classically-oriented dances in South Indian cinema is frustrating.  It’s acknowledged by scholars in the field that there is an “absence of any comprehensive documentation on the subject” as Arundhathi Subramaniam says in her essay “Dance in Films” (“New Directions in Indian Dance,” Sunil Kothari).  What’s deliciously ironic about her statement is that she is referring to “dance in Hindi cinema” only, which actually has in the past decade or so started to receive some scholarly attention (Sangitha Shresthova, Ajay Gehlawat, and many others).  Expand beyond “Bollywood” though and the lack of information is appalling!

Subramaniam's Hindi film emphasis is explained by her historical description that when “cinema acquired a ‘voice’,” “Hindi cinema…stepped in to play the vital role of pan-Indian cinema – a functioned conferred upon it by an increasingly patriotic zeitgeist that sought to construct a homogenous unifying national identity.”  She then notes how common “creative loans from folk and classical dance idioms” were and that choreographers like Gopi Krishna and Uday Shankar and dancers like Vyjayanthimala and Padmini influenced “the approach to dance in film in the ‘50s.”  But as this post series will show, when one moves to the southern regional industries the folk and classical dance influences are much stronger and offer rich opportunities in historical, political, and sociological analysis due to who the choreographers and dancers were and the cultural mileu they lived in.  I find it completely fascinating, and I don’t know why more folks don’t take up this topic for academic research!

One of the few mainstream articles I’ve found on classical Indian film dance, “Classical Dance Fades from Big Screen” by Malini Nair, clearly illustrates what results from the lack of information and recognition of regional film dances.  Nair says, “even masters like CV Chandrasekhar today point to Aplam Chaplam as one of the most crackling onscreen displays of Bharatanatyam…The Sai sisters went on to do one more dance in Hindi films (Man Bhavan Ke Ghar; Chori Chori) before disappearing.”  First of all, Azaad’s "Aplam Chaplam" dance was remade from Mallaikalan, and the original’s “Neeli Megan" dance had a much more authentic Bharatanatyam-based dance than its spiced-up Hindi remake.  But since the article restricts itself to Hindi films, what about Vyjayanthimala’s awesome authentic Bharatanatyam Alarippu in New Delhi, and Kamala's brilliant dance in Chori Chori?

But the most egregious error in the article is regarding “the Sai” or Sayee-Subbulakshmi (aka Sai-Subbulaxmi) sisters.  They had other, folksier numbers in a handful of Hindi films, not just “one more dance.”  And they most certainly did not disappear!  As Richard at the Dances on the Footpath Blog and I have discovered, their best classical work was found in their many Tamil dances.  By restricting the topic to Hindi films, all of these dances remain forgotten and the practitioners are written off as having vanished!  Shame, really.

The misconception appears to continue in Indian film dance scholar V.A.K. Ranga Rao's article on Vyjayanthimala in Sruti magazine (Issue 314).  “Apart from Hiralal and brother Sohanlal, there were very few south Indian dance directors.  Muthuswami Pillai did a brief alrippu-tillana number in New Delhi (1956), and Dandayudhapani Pillai Oonchi Oonchi Dukan in Pehli Jhalak.”  I suppose that is fairly accurate if the article is referring only to Hindi films, but it goes on to mention some of Vyjayanthimala’s Tamil classical numbers!  What about their choreographers? 

And beyond these specific examples, a recurring theme on my blog has been remembering the classical dances of Kumari Kamala/Kamala Lakshman/Kamala Lakshminarayanan who has largely been forgotten in popular film dance history despite her vast body of work featuring a small number of Hindi film dances (such as Kismet, Meera, and Ram Rajya as Baby Kamala and Chori Chori, Yahudi, Jwala etc as Kumari Kamala). 

Thus forms the series kick-off!  I may post other things along the way, but over the next few weeks (months? :)) I should be cranking out the posts.  Any and all feedback welcomed!

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