On the other day when I went to the park with my son to play
cricket I saw group of boys practicing dance. They looked at me curiously as they
found in me a grown up man who was destined to bowl and field and never to bat.
I looked at them with equal curiosity as I found them quite interesting. In
their malnourished bodies I could see the reservoirs of energy; they danced
their way away with all sincerity and devotion. They whirled, made hand stands,
head stands, rotations, somersaults, cartwheels, breaks and jerks, and moon
walking on the uneven grass land of the park. The first thing that came to my
mind was to give them a five hundred rupees note and ask them to go and watch ‘ABCD’
(Any Body Can Dance), directed and choreographed by Remo Desouza with Prabhudeva
in the lead role. But I restrained. Soon there was a strange wave of empathy between
those lower middle class boys and myself; they were picking up the balls struck
by my son for his fours and sixes and throwing back to me. After some time they
came to me and asked whether I was from the Press. I gave them an affirmative
answer. They claimed that they had seen me photographing their dance in some
function. I did not deny as I did not want their enthusiasm to die out. I asked
them why they were practicing so vigorously. They said they had a program
coming on the Valentine’s Day. I wished them all best and went back to bowling
to the impatient batsman standing at the other end of the ground in form of my
son.
Looking at those boys I realized that anybody could dance.
You don’t need polished floors, huge mirrors and Boss stereo sound systems to
shake your legs. If you have a will there is a dance floor out there. These
boys were making their companions’ faces as mirrors to reflect the agility of
their moves. They were teaching each other: each one teach one. In ABCD,
Prabhudeva, who acts as the dance master Vishnu says, ‘Anything that dances is
alive. A living thing is bound to dance.’ For him dance is the ultimate
meditation to redeem oneself. Dance is a way to life; dance is a way to
transcend class, caste and religion. Dance is the road to freedom. Dance is a challenge
and dance is an opportunity. Yes, Dance has always been a way of expressing one’s
inner feelings. Before dance became a high class affair though aerobics and salsas
and waltz and tarantullas, dance was a medium to express one’s way of life,
rebellion. Like music, dance too redeemed people from their bleakest of
moments. Dance was always an expression of the black people who had experienced
slavery. They danced to freedom as they sang to redemption. Mohammad Ali, the
boxer is claimed to have said that he was the originator of rap music as he
ranted against his opponents when he challenged them both within and without
the ring. And he danced while he boxed. Dance was a way to revolution.
Black People say the white men cannot dance. For the
anti-colonial and anti-Imperialist people dancing was a way of expressing
rebellion in the street. In 1980s break dance became a fad amongst the black youth
in the United States. Michael Jackson gave it much needed sophistication in his
moon walking techniques. Charlie Chaplin had perfected the art of dancing as a
celebration of life in his movies. If you carefully watch the famous song and
dance sequence in Modern Times one could see how Chaplin had introduced the
primary movements of moon walking in that particular scene. Michael Jackson
took off from there to give it an ethereal feeling. When it happened along with
his feminine shrieking the moves became a rage. Martial arts and street dancing
were two things that defined the other man’s rebellion all over the world along
with respective music during the post-Lennon period. While Bruce Lee ruled the
martial arts world (interestingly, most of the black people learnt martial arts
during that period and the trend continues even today), Michael Jackson ruled
the music world. From Michael Jackson when the music and dance comes to the
generation of Tupac Shakur and Biggie and then to rappers like Snoop Dog and
Ice Cube, dance has also reached the streets. Then it became a world fever.
ABCD is a formula picture but with a difference. The difference
lies in where when the film states that dance is not only a way of life but
also a way to reconcile with many things that could be detrimental to the
growth of life if not taken in the right spirit and unified with the spirit of
dance. Jehangir Khan (Kay Kay Menon) and Vishnu grew up in streets dancing.
Khan sets up JDC (Jehangir Dance Company). He is power hungry but Vishnu, the
chief instructor of the school is stands for ethics. When Khan gets JDC team
selected for the national dance competition, which is a televised program and
event, Vishnu feels dejected. Khan replaces Vishnu with a white dancer. Vishnu
is heartbroken and he wants to leave for his native, Chennai. But his friend
Gopi, a local dance master (played effectively by the massive dance
choreographer, Ganesh Acharya), insists that Vishnu should stay back and follow
his dreams, which is dancing. Vishnu gets the local Tapori boys and girls for
his class. Their internal rivalries are cleared and a new bonding is created by
the presence of their Guru, Vishnu and his dance. They are all set for the
competition. The usual corporate games happen. Families involve and dissuade
the kids from dancing. Drug addicts are saved through dance. Love and passion
for dance are tested. Death underlines love and it intensifies the feelings.
Finally Vishnu’s company reaches the final. To the dismay of Vishnu and his
students, they see Khan’s plotting succeeds in weaning away a key dancer from
their troupe. Now with no new steps and ten minutes in hand, Vishnu asks the
students to dance that dance anybody could dance. They do it and they become
the winners. The story is that.
(Prabhudeva, Saroj Khan, Remo D'Souza and Ganesh Acharya in ABCD credit song)
The film ABCD works in two modes: the middle class’ present
day aspirations to make it big in any field and the nostalgia of the film
industry itself. Today thanks to so many television channels and reality
programs, a lot of Indian middle and lower middle class people get a chance to
showcase their talents. From super dancers to singers to brats get a chance to
express their talents through these programs. One needs rigorous practice and
devotion to become a star; these programs underline. The middle class passion
to become great or the lower middle class’ desire to reach the upper layer
finds fruition in these devoted acts. It has changed India in a big way, one
should say. It would be interesting to see the plot of Bunty our Bubbli in this
context. Bunty wants to make it big through inventions and Bubbly wants to make
it big in fashion industry. Both of them fail so they become con-people. But
times have changed. Today, if you have real ability and determination to work
hard you can reach there, at least for one season. ABCD is all about that; the
small town kids’ aspiration to make it big. But the film has a better
philosophy to offer. If you have a dream to chase and devotion to put yourself
completely into it, you can make it. But you need to follow the truth as
embodied in a person or an ideal.
The aspect of nostalgia is very important in ABCD. In India,
most of the actors where dancing to the traditional steps composed by
traditional masters. There used to be a period when most of the choreography was
done by masters who belonged to the Uday Shankar school. The sets were grand
and steps were classical. Then came the era of Bhagwan Dada, who made languorous
body movement into graceful dance movement. Inspired by south Indian dance
masters there occurred a time during Jitendra’s younger days that brought him
the name Jumping Jack. Then it was the time of Mithun Chakravorty and Rishi
Kapoor, both danced to Disco and Rock and Roll respectively. Kamal Haasan
worked between the desi, margi and contemporary styles but still was not up to
the new age dance till late 1980s. It was Javed Jaffrey who brought the real
break dance in the Indian screen but his was an arrival well before in time so
he could not click. But his moves were picked up by many. Most of the
mainstream heroes started dancing to Jaffrey style. Chiranjeevi was one dancing
actor who popularized the break dance movements. All these prepared the ground
for Prabhudeva’s arrival.
Prabbudeva was assisting his choreographer father Sundaram
master and in late 1980s he was getting ready to break free from his father’s
style. He got chances to work with actors like Rajnikant (Annamalai- song
Annamalai Annamali) and it was his movie Kadalan (Super hit Muqabala- in Hindi)
that heralded the arrival of Prabhudeva as a dancing wonder. He changed the
grammar of Indian choreography because his moves were difficult and innovative.
The trend of choreographing according to the physical traits of the
actor/actress was toppled considerably by Prabhudeva’s dancing movements that
needed tremendous training and a real passion for dance. Dance took Prabhudeva,
a shy, bearded, humble, lean, thin, dark, tall and above all non-English/Hindi
speaking actor/dancer to the national scene. Most of the actors and
choreographer had to redefine their grammars with the arrival of Prabhudeva.
Saroj Khan was the peerless queen of choreography in 1980s and 1990s, designing
dances for the actresses like Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit. With Prabhudeva’s
arrival, heroes in mainstream Bollywood also had to dance differently. If you
look at the career graph of Govinda, Akshay Kumar, Shah Rukh Khan, Amir Khan
and Salman Khan, one could see the first three actors worked well on their
dance and the latter two preferred choreographers according to their body
style. The generation that followed with Hritik Roshan in the lead are well
versed dancers thanks to the number of dance schools came up in the industry
with Shiamak Dawar in the lead as the dance master. One could say that it was
clearly a Prabhudeva effect on the Indian film industry.
The nostalgia aspect of ABCD happens through the evocation
of this collective memory. Prabhudeva after a gap of a decade re-emerged as a
director of hit films like Rowdy Rathore. While he abstained himself from acting
for sometime or reduced his presence into cameo appearances or occasional
public presence as a judge to a few reality dance programs, people wanted more
and more from this dancing sensation as he spoke very little or his eloquence
of silence was broken by broken English or broken Hindi. To have Prabhudeva in
a full length role not as a Hero who fights but as someone who dances or
teaches dance, must have been a collective desire of the Indian audience and
Remo Desouza has not gone wrong while casting Prabhudeva in the lead role for
ABCD. Prabhudeva who is in his mid 30s now is still young, with the same body
as he had when he debuted and has a casual dressing sense, which is cool and
rebellious for the young audience, but has a class of his own that he has
gained over a period of time in his film career as a choreographer, actor and
director. It shows that the very casting of Prabhudeva, with his black underdog’s
body, conveys the message that Any Body Can Dance. If Prabhudeva could make it
then anybody could, the film says and it is believable. Perhaps, we
conveniently forget the fact that Prabhudeva is a classically trained dancer
and had a long apprenticeship under his choreographer father. Or perhaps, it is
the time that we relish the presence of all those sons of artists who had never
a chance to become celebrities in their life time. I would cite Veeru Devgun
(Fight master and father of Ajay Devgun), Shetty Ganja (fighter and father of
Rohit Shetty), and Sundaram master (choreographer and father of Prabhudeva). We
should not forget R.K.Shekhar who was an accomplished arranger of music and
sired A.R.Rahman.
(A thrilling dance scene from ABCD)
The film starts with the falling out of Jehangir and Vishnu.
Vishnu finds his protégés as he watches the police chasing a few local youths
who are dancers and trouble shooters. He sees them again at the Ganapati
Visarjan festival in one of the streets of Mumbai. There are two rival groups
and they end up in fighting. The whole efforts to bring them into the dance
floor by Vishnu vaguely remind one of the Billie Jean video of Michel Jackson.
The two rival groups come together to dance and prove their worth and Vishnu is
the peace maker through the art of dance. He is more spiritual in his approach.
He admonishes his students when they get into a bar dance competition.
According to Vishnu arrogance out of any art form shows the lack of
understanding of the performer therefore he is ill equipped to do the
performance. He even decides to leave the city dejected. Now the students want
him back. So they get him back through another dance.
There are two strong sub texts working along the movie, which
I would cite as two problems that the understanding of the movie would
eventually raise. First of all, the larger backdrop of the movie is Hindu; when
we read the Ganesh festival, it shows an aggressive Hindu nature. Though the
Christian film director tries to pitch in an element of Christianity through
the large sculpture of a pious angel at the terrace of the chawl where Gopi
lives and setting most of the shots opening with the looming presence of this
angel, one cannot avoid seeing the larger Hindu element in it. And to underline
this, the last song where Vishnu asks his team to perform the way that anybody
would perform in a given situation, the theme automatically becomes a Ganesh
festival. The students recreate the ambience of Ganesh festival in their
winning dance sequence. This is a problematic when we read Vishnu as the
protagonist’s name. While most of the black movies that treated black identity
as the issue that demanded transcendence through dance, here the medium of
transcendence while remaining the lower middle class, it is expected to seek
the deliverance of it through Hinduism. It is a task that the film director
should have taken into account and handled in a different way by introducing an
absolutely new context of liberation, of the class through dance. May be, a bit
more considerate reading would make us feel that as it is India we cannot avoid
the meta narrative of Hinduism when we discuss class or an aspiration for
classlessness.
(De Dancing for his life- Dharmesh Yelande, the new comer in his haunting performance)
The other sub-text that creates another problematic is this;
the traitors are all shown or suspected as people belonging to the Muslim
community. Bollywood has always created the Muslim as the other even before the
identity of the global terrorist has been fixed as Muslim by certain interest
groups. But in ABCD, Vishnu is betrayed by Jehangir Khan (it is not a Fernandes
or Tyrewallah or Jain or Dawar or Kapoor). Then again the first spanner is
thrown at the spoke of the well oiled dancing engine of Vishnu’s school is by
Qureshi (a person who runs a poultry farm and mutton business) and he happened
to be the Muslim Dancer ‘D’s father. But the young generation Muslim D stands
upto the challenge and he shows his allegiance to Vishnu and his dancing mates
by leaving his own home. But when the question of betrayal comes it is D who is
under the shadow of suspicion. Even when JDC buys out Vishnu’s dancers the
first finger is pointed at D. Is it because he is a Muslim? The question
remains. The film ABCD despite these pitfalls and formulaic approach has a lot
of positive energies to offer. It also works towards the eradication of tobacco
and drug abuse. I wish the film was in 2D than 3D.
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