![bollywood groove lotus hands bollywood groove lotus hands](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/be/9a/84/be9a8414716191c29a8dabe4dae44cc4.jpg)
We were representing our school, our team, our culture. But we were being recorded for national television. Indian dance team members have only one reaction to being compared to “Jai Ho” and that is eye-rolls and laughter (at best). “You know, we all saw ‘Jai Ho’ and Slumdog Millionaire a few years ago.” “We’re all familiar with Bollywood dance,” he said, and we grinned and nodded, still high from the adrenaline of our performance. Even college students whose evenings are consumed by these rehearsals can’t take that much time away from becoming doctors, engineers, and irritable writers.
Bollywood groove lotus hands professional#
Fair enough, since we are literally not a professional dance team. Which is more than fine, except for the comments of one Howie Mandel.Īfter our performance, the judges were mostly kind you guys are good and you have the right spirit, but you aren’t professional.
![bollywood groove lotus hands bollywood groove lotus hands](https://ivcdn2.imgix.net/1691/images/ltOawko0S8Kq5rsdqqOV_a5a9b53b9b8a495085a91c137d8b2818.png)
Just to be there with my former teammates was a joy in itself, whether or not we advanced. AGT was an opportunity unlike anything I’ve received or likely will receive again. It seemed promising enough a college-level Bollywood dance team flown out to LA to audition for a huge television talent competition. The kind folks at AGT were good enough to give me a reality check. At this time, I was still living in my Global-Bollywood-Bubble people know what it is and understand the arts and oh, what a time to be alive! This was thrown into pretty sharp relief for me in April, when my college dance team auditioned for America’s Got Talent. Indian culture is being commodified for Western television audiences, and it needs to change. But if you learned about Bollywood from So You Think You Can Dance or some other network reality show, or literally any avenue other than actual Bollywood movies and the people who watch them, then chances are you don’t fully get it. I love that I don’t even have to explain the word in most settings now, because people have come to understand a general aura of Indian films and music. But no amount of arbitrarily loud costumes or wild hand gestures can distract from the real problem here.īollywood dance is, slowly but surely, becoming mainstream. They are excellent dancers and performed the routine to the best of their ability. This week, contestants on So You Think You Can Dance performed a “Bollywood” dance routine, now a staple of the show, to the usual wild applause from the audience and cautious praise from the judges. It’s been a long time coming, but I’m finally just…done. I am so over seeing Indian and Bollywood dancing on American television.