Reviews 2010
Reviews 2010
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created and directed by Tony Gough
Cami LLC, Sony Centre, Toronto
November 4-14, 2010
The Merchants of Bollywood claims to be “the first authentic Indian music and dance spectacular direct from Film City Bombay,” but it is, in fact, an Australian production written and directed by Australian Tony Gough. All the cast may be from Bombay (now called Mumbai), but the show premiered in Sydney and has never played in India. This is just one of many oddities that riddle this colourful, hyperkinetic dance revue that seems not to know if it is celebrating or ridiculing its subject--the history of Bollywood cinema.
The show, based on the real life story of its choreographer Vaibhavi Merchant, tells of a young woman Ayesha Merchant (Carol Furtado) in conflict with her grandfather Shantilal (Arif Zakaria). He wants her to uphold the Kathak tradition of classical Indian dance, while she wants to go to Bollywood (an industry that produces over 800 films a year) and become famous. Shantilal himself was one of Bollywood’s most influential choreographers, but he decries how dance in film has strayed from native traditions. This might make sense except that V. Merchant’s choreography in no way supports this. Shantilal requests one last traditional temple dance before Ayesha departs, but, strangely enough, it includes breakdancing. We are shown examples of Shantilal’s tradition-based style but it includes 1950s rock ‘n‘ roll, hip-hop and salsa. Since we can’t tell Ayesha’s new-style dance numbers from her grandfather’s, the whole set-up of their conflict and reconciliation seems false. The coup de grâce to any pretence of believable storytelling comes when Ayesha wins an award for best choreography for a film inspired by her grandfather’s life. Its central sequence danced for us is “It’s the Time to Disco!” It’s lucky Shantilal had already been cremated or he’d be spinning in his grave.
The show’s 3800 costumes are indeed vibrant but are often hard to make out against the background of a huge LED display wall set to play a number of dizzying screen savers unrelated to the dances. All the music is pre-recorded and is lip-synched, erratically, by the cast. The dances are lively but often look more like vigorous aerobic workouts than expressions of feeling. Even then, the troupe lacks the military precision of the best Bollywood dance interludes. Add to this Satwinder Singh Jaspal as a caricatured, double limp-wristed film director and the acrobatic Dipender Singh as Ayesha’s token love interest who seems to act with his tattooed pecs and you have a show that doesn’t even try to make us understand why Bollywood’s fantasy world is so appealing to 14 million people every day.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2010-11-05.
Photo: Cast of The Merchants of Bollywood.
2010-11-05
The Merchants of Bollywood