Thread: Didem does Bollywood.

Ok so I don't know how I found this... but heres a video of Didem doing a song from Devdas. Song is Called Maar Dala. Its performed by Mahduri Dixt in the movie and is probably one of my favorite pieces in the movie.

Im pretty familiar with the choreography.... So when I saw this:


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81JDXgeJDwY]YouTube - Oryantal Didem (03.06;2009)[/ame]


Needless to say I was pretty taken aback.

Here is the original piece for reference....

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJU5gEg12SQ]YouTube - Devdas - Mar Dala[/ame]


Whats going on with her? First the boobs, Then the lips, then the hair, now a Choreography??? Is she alright? Is she running out of ideas?

Bollywood's been pretty hot this year due to the success of Slumdog Millionaire. Not really crazy about all the floor moves, but I think she was probably just having some fun with one of the latest trends.

Slumdog Millionaire is NOT a Bollywood film.
OK, now that we have cleared that up:

Hindi films have been popular in Turkey for many, many years.
Ask Turkish people and they will tell you that they watched Bollywood on TV when they were children.

Didem just proves that no matter how long you have been bellydancing, it doesn't automatically make you good at Bollywood dance.
And the costume is way too skimp - a good Indian girl wears pants under her skirt when she dances, not matter how short the skirt and pants!

Hurts my eyes...

MEISSOUN

I've done this choreography! I LOVE maar dala. How funny to see Didem dancing a version of it. Thanks for sharing, it's cool.

Gotta tell you...that "draging across the floor with no legs" bit is very disturbing to me....gut reaction, dont have a clue about the songs meaning, but it felt very wrong to me. Crippled mimicry...am I off base?

Originally Posted by meissoun

Slumdog Millionaire is NOT a Bollywood film.
OK, now that we have cleared that up:

This is so true, but we can't deny that Bollywood became quite popular for some time after the release of that film At least, I know this was true in the US for awhile.

Personally, I wasn't bothered all THAT much because Didem doesn't label herself as a Bollywood dancer. I just saw it as an effort to do something different.

Originally Posted by anala

Crippled mimicry...am I off base?

Not exactly off-base ..l;,

I didn't mind the rest of the dance, but this part was the "minus one" for me.

Maar Dala means "You have killed me" I fI remember correctly. I may be misremembering. It was about 5 yrs ago.

I love Madhuri Dixit!
Didem looks positively silly...


This is my favorite Madhuri piece
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNbKui-beS8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNbKui-beS8[/ame]

Man, if I sooo had the time for another form of dance, this would be it!
Maybe one day...

I think I remember her doing a clip of bollywood a couple of years ago, I dont think this is a new thing of hers.

Didem performs a lot, and I think pretty much every day, on TV, I can't see how a dancer under these circumstances can come up with new and original material for every single performance. Copying a choreography from a movie may not exactly be the most admirable strategy for a star, but how else can one keep a hundred new things coming every year?

Originally Posted by midnight_star56

I think I remember her doing a clip of bollywood a couple of years ago, I dont think this is a new thing of hers.

Yes, I remember that, too--she was still brunette then...but she still did her version of bollywood moves/mudras and that perplexing "amoeba"/tadpole floor-squirming thingy that she does...

Newbie maybe sticking her foot in her mouth, but I'm trying to understand these Didem threads...

In regards to the Bollywood number, doesn't she perform very regularly on the same television show, for the same audience? Hasn't she done appeared there for a long time? With that in mind, it seems reasonable to me that she'd *need* to be inventive to keep it fresh, and that inserting a popular choreographed Bollywood number would do that.

Is it possible that the show itself requested something like this, seeing that its from a very popular film and people might well want to see it? Wouldn't this be the equivalent of a Broadway number from "Chicago" being done on an American TV show?

I understand not liking the number - I don't get it, either... but I don't speak the language, know the story in the film, or understand the significance of the movements. (I assume they aren't random) But what I'm not getting is why Didem doing this number would make someone ask if she's ok - I always thought change from a dancer is a sign of growth (even if there may be an awkward growing period).

What am I missing here?

Here are the translated lyrics for those who want to know what the song is about:
Devdas (2002) , Maar Daala Song Translated sLyrics

Bollywood lyrics are widely available on the internet.

MEISSOUN

Originally Posted by anala

Gotta tell you...that "draging across the floor with no legs" bit is very disturbing to me....gut reaction, dont have a clue about the songs meaning, but it felt very wrong to me. Crippled mimicry...am I off base?

Hi Anala. Its not crippled mimicry... its a movement from floor work for Kathak and often used in Bollywood as a part of an emotional narrative sequence.

I think Didem's dancing wasn't bad - its not Bollywood or Oriental dance, but its pretty movements with - at times - some Indian flavor to them...now, I would probably not choose THAT song for such an effort as its one of the more popular songs from a very popular Bollywood movie...and the material requires exceptional skill and understanding of it....

What disturbs me more is the plagiarism of choreography - then done badly. What, she couldn't make up her own crap? I mean sequences? She's way too qualified a dancer to be doing mediocre renditions of other people's work.

I think it is hilarious to see the Turkish take on Indian dance/culture/arts however - Bollywood has been doing horrific "interpretations" of ME dances for a long time... the ME is returning the favor for sure with stuff like this.

Hi Anala. Its not crippled mimicry... its a movement from floor work for Kathak and often used in Bollywood as a part of an emotional narrative sequence.

Thanks for that, David...every morsel of dance knowledge is appreciated...but it still gives me the creeps. Too many horror flicks as a kid maybe!

The Didem version didn't even touch the original. I was riveted watching the original. I felt uncomfortable watching Didem Of course the clip doesn't show the whole show so it's possible she gave credit to the movie and the original choreographer but somehow I doubt it.

To me (from the eyes of someone not versed at all with Bollywood or Didem, beyond a clip here & there): THe original looked theatrical and was obviously telling a story. Didn't need translation.

Didem's was disturbing-ish; not b/c of her costume or her movements, (regardless of the lack of pants!), but because of the surroundings and how the movements & costume fit in. With all those men & few women, crowding around, it gave me this frisson of ........ lap dance fantasy. OR "here's the next one up for auction" .... real purrrrty ain't she? Way too submissive.

If I mentally plucked her up and dropped her on stage at a hafla, it'd be ok, and I'd like watching her (even though I liked the original one better). But too creepy given the juxtaposition of the crowd and her.


Maybe it was just the way it was shot too, she might not have been so close to them.

Originally Posted by david

... Bollywood has been doing horrific "interpretations" of ME dances for a long time... the ME is returning the favor for sure with stuff like this.

Yea, I agree.
It was pretty clear she had NO idea what the lyrics are.

I have seen a much better performance of that song a few years back. She is a good dancer , however

1. under no circumstances should that skirt go above the knee in that particular song unless your wearing tights that will not show your legs, Its a periodic song set on late 1800, Women in India were more conservative ,even if she was a dancer.

2. Lack of emotion - Madhuri Dixit is a Tawaif (prostitute) in that song/movie, a royal one, she has money but do not have love . In that particular video Didem seems to have lots of love and happiness , both.

3. Kathak dance includes a lot of spinning but its done in taal or rythm with proper hand movement, not just spinning and spinning.
but I think it might be difficult for her to do it in such a tight space.

4. Costuming - A rich Tawaif is supposed to have a lot of money, She wears a lot not the bare minimum.

Other than that it was entertaining.

I just don't know why some dancers think that because they have been belly dancing for awhile they can do any other dance form without the required training. I don't know that much about Indian dances but I do know that they take years and years of training to master it it, or probably just to be able to do it well. So is Flamenco.
I think it's a conceited and disrespectful attitude for a belly dancer to "dress up" in Indian attire,(or for example, put on Flamenco shoes / skirt / shawl) and mimic the movements (or, copy a choreo). What about the history, the attitude, the meaning, etc of the dance?

Fusion is one thing, but she's not doing fusion.
I understand her needing to reinvent herself every week and come up with exciting, new things,but there are other things to choose from, she just needs to be creative.

I completely agree with you Marianna, and I think that if we ourselves as Middle Eastern dancers do this, it allows other dancers with no Middle Eastern dance training to do the same thing. "Oh, well I have x years of experience doing "insert dance form here", so belly dance should be no problem"

Originally Posted by Mahsima

I completely agree with you Marianna, and I think that if we ourselves as Middle Eastern dancers do this, it allows other dancers with no Middle Eastern dance training to do the same thing. "Oh, well I have x years of experience doing "insert dance form here", so belly dance should be no problem"

Definitely. I blundered into a 6-week wonder class at my gym. I went b/c I was looking for a bellyrobics type class, not a how-to class. It was the latter, and so I stayed to be polite, but as time went by I realized that although she moved well, she had no understanding of ME rhythms or what the songs were about. She had us doing hip drops on a 4/4 count when the music changed to 9/8. Train wreck! And she didn't even notice.

Turned out that she was a nice woman, who'd done flamenco for 40+ years, and no bellydance until recently. And then she admitted that she didn't know any of the music/songs, but got one of her students to make CDs for her. [OUCH!]

I found another of hers, doing the same song. Interesting.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5YOJ_rbLD8&feature=fvw"]YouTube - Didem[/ame]

Originally Posted by BELLA_BELLA

. With all those men & few women, crowding around, it gave me this frisson of ........ lap dance fantasy. OR "here's the next one up for auction" .... real purrrrty ain't she? Way too submissive.

At least you got the idea right
As somebody mentionned, it's a prostitute's song - there aren't supposed to be ANY women around watching it (except for other girls working at the same place).
An establishment that features this style of dance is not where "good girls" go and have tea...

MEISSOUN

About one die hard Bollywoodfan in Turkey,Eva Cernik writes:

Little Emine Tatu was born to a Yugoslavian immigrant man (who also spoke Greek) from Vodina City, and a beautiful Turkish woman.
They had four boys, and Emine was exactly in the middle. Her father was a fruit and vegetable seller, and none of her brothers were artists.
They lived in Fatih, a conservative area of Istanbul just west of the Golden Horn, in a house with a large garden and fruit trees. The family garden was adjoining the big city garden where there was an open air cinema.
In the late fifties and early sixties Hindi movies were very popular in Istanbul. One film would run for a month at a time at the cinema.
At ten years old Emine and her young friends would play "dress up," and with four bottle caps or coins stuck to the ends of their fingers with tree sap, they would pretend to play zils and imitate the arm and head movements of the Hindi film dancers.
One can imagine how those little girls were mezmerised by the ongoing full color drama and greater-than-life bejeweled dancers nearly in their own backyard."

The girl later took the name Sema Yildiz.

And present day:
"One time at the dinner table we mentioned the old time Hindi cine couple Rajih Kopour and Nargis.
Sema became very animated as she sang the film song "Avare," remembering almost all of the words and dancing in her chair,
her youthful sparkle still shining forth brightly."

Didem was Sema´s protegé,and maybe caught the Bollywood bug from her,I don´t know any if there are *any* Indian dance teachers in Turkey?

Hey-now I have a late night idea...;)

Sigh. I love Devdas. She picked the worse song IMO out of the whole movie to fuse...

Originally Posted by emma-bessa

About one die hard Bollywoodfan in Turkey,Eva Cernik writes:

Little Emine Tatu was born to a Yugoslavian immigrant man (who also spoke Greek) from Vodina City, and a beautiful Turkish woman.
They had four boys, and Emine was exactly in the middle. Her father was a fruit and vegetable seller, and none of her brothers were artists.
They lived in Fatih, a conservative area of Istanbul just west of the Golden Horn, in a house with a large garden and fruit trees. The family garden was adjoining the big city garden where there was an open air cinema.
In the late fifties and early sixties Hindi movies were very popular in Istanbul. One film would run for a month at a time at the cinema.
At ten years old Emine and her young friends would play "dress up," and with four bottle caps or coins stuck to the ends of their fingers with tree sap, they would pretend to play zils and imitate the arm and head movements of the Hindi film dancers.
One can imagine how those little girls were mezmerised by the ongoing full color drama and greater-than-life bejeweled dancers nearly in their own backyard."

The girl later took the name Sema Yildiz.

And present day:
"One time at the dinner table we mentioned the old time Hindi cine couple Rajih Kopour and Nargis.
Sema became very animated as she sang the film song "Avare," remembering almost all of the words and dancing in her chair,
her youthful sparkle still shining forth brightly."

Didem was Sema´s protegé,and maybe caught the Bollywood bug from her,I don´t know any if there are *any* Indian dance teachers in Turkey?

Hey-now I have a late night idea...;)

Actually, considering that the Indian cinema has been huge in countries all the way from Morrocco to Malaysia for decades I am actually quite suprised at times by the fact that Egyptian dance ended up looking at Hollywood as it's "alter ego" rather than Bollywood. It is also interesting to see how the Turks typically have more of an Bollywood touch to them than a Hollywood touch.

Turks, Persians, Afghanis, Iraqis etc etc etc have all been caught bursting out into the oldest Bollywood classic song with the cutest accent as soon as they meet an Indian person.