Bollywood Dance: Part 2

After my last Bollywood dance show I continued practicing with Mona Khan Dance company for the non performance as well as the next performance quarter. I managed to drag Vishnu for the non performance class and I'd like to think he enjoyed himself.

 

The most recent session, I switched from the Cupertino class to the one in Santa Clara. Dhanashri was the instructor and Divya was coleading the class. The studio in Santa Clara is much smaller and the  number of people per class is way higher. We had almost 15 people in all which made the studio very crammed. Unlike last time, there were no weekend practices and general hangout which I missed badly.  In addition, there was some issue with my costume which was a little stressful. But it was fixed by the rehearsals. All these factors took away some of the fun from the class.

On the brighter side, I found the choreography much more easy to pick up than the previous sessions. Also, most of the others in class were decent dancers so our final performance looks in synch.

  

Here's the video of the performance. Since there were so many people on stage, it is quite zoomed out and difficult to see anyone's face.

 

Belly Dancing

I've been taking belly dancing classes for a while now. These classes are offered by the Sunnyvale Adult Education program. Beginner classes happen in Fremont High School.

 
Tracy was our instructor and for 8 weeks we learnt choreography for 2 songs-Perhaps Perhaps by Doris Day and Habibi Tal Aleya by Madonna. We learnt a lot of basic belly dance and Arabian dance moves which were quite fun. At the end of the 8 week session, Tracy had organized a student night where dancers from the beginner, intermediate and advanced classes perform and put on a show. Friends and family are welcome to watch. Potluck style dinner was served.

We were given colorful skirts and veils by Tracy who was kind enough to let us borrow them. Sandhya and I decided to do a duet Bollywood performance too. We met up a few days before the show and choreographed a dance sequence to 'Mauja Mauja.'


Our group was the first to perform. Since the audience was small (~40 people) and the fact that Tracy was dancing with us, I had no stage fear. The first dance went quite well. The Bollywood dance as I had anticipated lacked coordination as we barely practiced it and ended up looking messy. The audience still applauded and at the end of the show several dancers asked us to teach them the Bollywood moves and they seemed to have really enjoyed the dance.

 

For one of the songs, audience members and kids were called on to dance. It was a lot of fun. The best performance of the day was a solo dance with sword. The dancer balanced a sword on her head while belly dancing. She was so confident and her moves were perfect. The show ended with everyone coming to the floor and dancing away to the music.

Here are the performances:

Perhaps

Habibi

Mauja:

It was a wonderful experience to be a part of the show.