| |
Working out, slumdog-style
Ancient moves take on new flavor as Bollywood beats
by Michael Daigle
The Daily Record – April 13, 2009
 The dance moves are as old as time and as fresh as today.
They bring together the ancient faiths of India and the street savvy of urban hip-hop. But they are also, said Laura Yelvigi of Morristown, a dance/aerobics instructor at Six Degrees of Wellness in Denville, "just fun." The fun, Yelgivi said, is incorporating the Bollywood Beat dances, seen recently in the Academy Award-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire," into the weekly workout classes she leads. Bollywood dance moves are, like many forms of dance, drawn from historic sources often based in faith, she said, but over time have absorbed influences from all cultures. "Bollywood has reinvented itself often," she said. "In the 1970s the influences were the Beatles and pop music, now there are West African beats and reggae, hip-hop."
The popularity today also is due to a similarity in the dance form to American country western dances, she said. Her students say that there is a certain similarity in the formality of country western line dancing and Bollywood dance. Whatever the reason, she said, Bollywood beats offer a way for a mother and her teenage daughter to enjoy an exercise class; each is able to relate to the music and movement in their own way. "It allows them to create their own beat," she said. Yelgivi has a doctorate in pharmacy and works for Bayer in regulatory affairs, but has also been a dancer most of her life. In college she was a member of a dance troupe, so the shift to using dance as a exercise technique is not much of a stretch. Incorporating Bollywood beats into a class also allows her to introduce a measure of her Indian heritage to her students.
These were the dances that as a child she did in her bedroom while watching Bollywood movies, or performed in a little more structured form in public. Yelgivi grew up in Basking Ridge and is a first-generation American. Her parents emigrated from India "because my father saw America as the land of opportunity." She said living in the United States and for a time in India has given her a perspective on the opportunities both nations offer. India is a sprawling, ancient country whose culture is defined in the breadth of its complexity and regional diversity, she said. Modern communications have connected the regions of the country as never before, yet the nation's culture remains a jumble of regional influences. "India's democracy is very old," she said. "It is a different style of democracy than the American democracy. The culture is very rich." Bollywood beats are also very old, she said.
In the Hindu religion, dance and music were used to tell stories of the lives of the gods, she said. The hand gestures, foot positions and body movements each were designed to relate one aspect of the story. As the culture changed with modern influences, the religious meaning of the dances faded but remain evident in many of the distinctive gestures still used, even as they take on a jazzy aspect or a hip-hop attitude. Bollywood also represented for Yelgivi and other Indian children an idealized dream, a way for advancement, she said. "Bollywood is the opportunity that you have to be someone," she said.
As a child watching a Bollywood movie and mimicking the dance moves, she said, stars were in her eyes as she thought, "I can do that." While she did not live in the Mumbai slums portrayed in "Slumdog Millionaire" she said they were not unfairly shown. Poverty exists everywhere and striving to improve one's life is not uncommon, she said. She said she admired the inventiveness the children in that movie showed. But poverty is a teacher. "If you are poor wherever you are, sometimes is it a matter of how much you make of it," she said. Which is why the American dream of opportunity shines so brightly in the world, she said.
The chance for advancement brought her parents to the United States. That move gave her the chance to earn a doctorate in an important field of education and a job at a top company. Being of two nations and two cultures gives her the opportunity to examine both and benefit from the richness of both, she said. But there is one common lesson: "If you want to become something, there is sacrifice," she said. While it might not be evident to the students in her dance class that the graceful hand gesture she just made has a weighted history, or might be some spur-of-the-moment variation that a dancer might try, Laura Yelgivi understands that somewhere in India hundreds of years ago another dancer had a similar thought and experienced the fun of dance and movement. Without saying so, it is how she honors the ancient past of one culture and pushes another one forward.
Michael Daigle can be reached at (973) 267-7947 or at mdaigle@gannett.com.
|
 |
