Bar Dancer: Post Ban Performance at Ellora Bar (Saloni, Geeta)

Duration: 00:05:44; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 320.419; Saturation: 0.403; Lightness: 0.190; Volume: 0.253; Cuts per Minute: 3.832; Words per Minute: 7.490

Dancing in bars of Bombay and other parts of Maharashtra began in 1970s. In 2005, the Maharashtra government proposed to ban dancing in the bars. The proposal sparked wide public debate on sexual morality, women’s rights and right to livelihood. This is a dance performance of two bar dancers.

gypsy
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Annotation 3: The two woman bar dance sequence is an enigmatic re-enactment of the ancient solar myth where the wife of the sun leaves him leaving behind her shadow as a surrogate for herself in her marital bed. Dancing amongst the 'gypsy' criminal tribes of India is squarely related to the solar myth, dancing being related to the sun's wife, the trance and possession, as she is also related to the break of dawn and language itself. The double treat here reminds us of such references as the dance duet by Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai's as a tribute to the rather wasted Devdas in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's film of the same name. The logic one woman being the shadow of the other and yet being different creates a tension in the viewer's mind. In more mythic situations (as in Bhansali's film) this duality in an ostensible sameness becomes the test of the edge of desire that can test the value systems that sustain the 'respectable' propertied social order - the conflict between say wife and prostitute in the male mind. Desire is sustained between the 'light' and 'dark' side of the mind. However within this propertied order there are many instances in history as well as in fiction where the women thus clubbed together in the 'virtual' harem of the male mind turn the system on its head, become friends in sharing life and labor. Such elective affinities show up the impossibility of reconciling desire and labor for the single housewife with a heavy social order impinging upon the home. We see glimpses of this 'revisionist' reading in Bhansali's film, something that has been actually quite common in the annals of Bengali literature and cinema where the logic of multiple wives in a household had got socialized in a non-martial landlordly middle class milieu in ways that did not happen in the rest of India.

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solar myth
Borivali
Ellora Bar, Bombay
Hindi film song: Salam-e-ishq meri jaan / Jara kabul kar le / Tum humse pyar karne ka / Jara si bhul kar lo…) Salute to romance my beloved / Just accept it once / make the slight mistake of loving me…Hindi film song.
It is quote from a mujra sequence in the popular flick 'Muqaddar ka Sikandar', directed by Prakash Mehra in 1978 The film is a doomed love story between a courtesan (played by Rekha) to a much misunderstood orphan turned toughie (played by Amitabh Bachchan). This song is often played in the dance bars to evoke romantic and seductive atmosphere. In this event two dancers dance to the song to an imaginary audience. The younger dancer dressed in red and silver displays a youthful sensuality and the older dancer dressed in parrot green and black represents a matured and overt sexuality. They dance in some loose co-ordination but never respond to each other. Time to time they cover their faces to heighten the sensuality. Generally the dance bar stages are crowded with multiple number of dancers dancing at the same time. So the space crunch makes the dance more gestural and include a few standardise vertical movements. The younger woman seems to be completely absorbed in her own histrionics. While the older dancer tries to be innovative by switching roles from the woman to the man.
ban
bollywood music
bollywood music
dance
dance bar
dance bar
dancing
performance
performance
salaame ishq meri jaan

her mudra (hand gesture) depicts pataka

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