African Bollywood dance a big hit
A combination of Indian and African dance based on Bollywood melodies proved to be major hits at SA's prestigious arts event.
A combination of Indian and African dance based on Bollywood melodies, and a husband and wife team combining the sitar and the cello proved to be major hits at South Africa's most prestigious arts event.
The Bollywood items attracted large numbers at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival over the past week.
"We had two shows and many people came back after seeing it the first time round, despite the fact that there were so many different shows happening at the same time and people were battling to take them all in," said Vinod Hassel of the R.K Dance Theatre.
Hassel, who has pioneered Indian dance among black students in townships such as Soweto and Thembisa, led his charge from those areas as well as South African Indian students in performing a medley of Bollywood-inspired dances, titled "African Bollywood".
The items were well received by audiences, with those who missed the two performances wanting the group to stay back for more.
"Grahamstown had never seen an Indian show with a Bollywood theme before. It was not only Indians in the audience, it was also pleasantly surprising to find so much interest from the black community.
"We started off with music of K.L. Saigal from the 1930s, moving on to music from every era of the Indian movie industry, so that people could see how dance and music evolved in the film industry from the black and white era to today's high-tech."
Also proving very popular were sitar player Shubhendra Rao of India and his Dutch wife Saskia, a cello player.
For Rao, who has played in almost every other part of the world, it was his first performance not only in South Africa but also in the entire continent.
Rao said the programme that he and his wife had put together was not entirely one of Indian classical music.
"It was more like a fusion of East and West, between the sitar and the cello, but we also had a second concert that consisted of purely classical Indian music."