India-natives Jiya Joshi and Pavi Shetty relocated to the Valley area almost a decade ago after their husbands found work at Microsoft, but that hasn’t stopped them from celebrating their heritage through public Bollywood classes.
Joshi hails from Bombay, the financial capital and center of the Bollywood industry, and is a classically trained Bharatanatyam dancer – she said she’s even taught classes in India. Shetty was raised in southern India and said she’s been dancing since she could walk.
“There are a lot of Bollywood classes (in India) and I see people like it here, too,” Joshi said in the Snoqualmie Library.
Joshi and Shetty offered a free introductory class at the library that they said garnered a lot of interest from the community, and they’re working on perpetuating that momentum with adult “BollyFit” and kid classes for ages 4 and up.
Bollywood derived its name from cut-and-pasting the “B” of the former city of Bombay (now renamed Mumbai) in place of the “H” of Hollywood, and, with its technicolor costumes and exaggerated moves, it certainly inherited the glitz and glamour of pubescent Hollywood.
There are hundreds of folk dances throughout India’s 29 states, but Joshi and Shetty are focusing on Rajasthani folk from the west, Kathak from the northeast, Bharatanatyam from the south and Bhangra from the north.
“It’s more about the expressive moments, it’s all about telling stories,” Joshi continued.
“The other dance forms, they’re more about the body movement, but in some of the Bollywood tracks it’s just this,” she paused, motioning to her face: “Expressions.”
As Bollywood is more about storytelling and expressing feelings, Joshi said it’s typically easier for people with little or no dancing backgrounds to jump into the choreography.
“It’s not just about dance form, it’s also building their confidence,” she continued. “It’s open for all, it’s not just for the Indian community. We see that when we introduce this dance form, we see a lot of non-Indians also like it – just like how we find ballet a very nice dance, or Zumba.”
To find out about classes, send email to Bollydance@outlook.com.
