Now I'm having lots of fun trying to think of other examples I've seen of these amateur-to-professional sort of songs. That Street Singer song is an excellent find! I just love that they have preserved these films from the 30s- feels like such a treat to watch them as they are so rare and could have so easily been lost.
HINDI DANCE SONG 2014 FULL
I hope you do the amateur-to-adult performance post, I would be very interested to see it! Another one from my list that sort of fits that theme is the second "Ananda Bhairavi" song above in which the little girl is shown growing up to a woman in full Kuchipudi costume, though she doesn't transition to professional/stage performances in the song. I think this will persuade me to purchase the film- right now I only have the song numbers from it on a compilation DVD. Richard - How interesting, I had no idea Thillana Mohanambal had a practice scene! I suppose that makes sense given the plot of the movie. I've sensed that from some of the things I've been reading about recent releases, particularly with the rise of Prithviraj and the GenY films (and massy numbers) he seems to have brought into the mix (or rather catered to the audiences desires, perhaps?). Prasanth - that's an interesting point you make about how Malayalam films have changed today. (I haven't seen the whole movie, btw, but quite a few songs from it, and I would love to find a copy of this.) Reply Delete But it must be one of the oldest, as well as greatest, Indian movies that feature practice scenes. That scene is a bit different from the kind you're posting about here, because while the child character dances, the adult character sings without dancing, and I believe that for the most part, this film shows singing and not dancing (though what beautiful singing it is!). And there is a good song/scene built around this kind of transition in a film going way back to 1938 - i.e., Street Singer with K.L. One, the name of which I've forgotten already (so it might take me a while to track down) is an early '60s film with Asha Parekh. I have been thinking for a while of doing a post about scenes which show practicing or amateur-performing children turning into famous adult stage performers in the same song. I don't know if you ever got a full copy of this movie(?), but if you have it, it's a scene definitely worth looking for.Īmong the ones above that I hadn't seen before, "Aadi Pizhaithalum" is very nice. It is short and goes very quickly, but I consider it a little gem as good as any of the "stage" performances in that film (which are among my favorite dance scenes anywhere, btw). I wanted to mention, there is a superb Padmini practice scene in Thillana Mohanambal. And I've got to admit I have quite a few more to go through, but of course, I couldn't wait to see everything before posting a comment. I know just a few of these, the Shobana scenes being foremost in my mind. I really hope that this gorgeous film gets released on DVD one day my posting of this clip is a plea to the makers to do so! (My separate post on the dances from this film is here).Īnother great list. It features Manju Bhargavi (many years after her performance in Shankarabharanam below) and Aditi Rao Hydari. Sringaram (Tamil, 2006) - This is an absolutely beautiful Bharatanatyam Padam piece made all the more enjoyable by the English subtitles. If you can make it all the way to the end, consider yourself a classical dance nerd like me! (Or maybe it's just list-making nerd?) Enjoy!
The videos below are listed in rough order of awesomeness, favorites first. It's interesting how many of them are from the 80s and 90s, the seeming "golden era" of this type of classical performance in film. Whatever it is, I'm simply a huge fan of them in films.īelow is a list of all 34 practice numbers I can think of in Indian films where the purpose of the song or scene is not "performance" but rather informal "practice" overall.
Or it could be that the dances often gets closer to their classical roots in this format. Or maybe it's the everyday, unadorned, simple nature of the dance that adds to its beauty. Perhaps it's the unassuming and flattering cotton sari wrapped around the dancer's body I've always liked plain saris a bit more than the full, complicated costume. There is something charming and beautiful about classical dance practice numbers in Indian films.