Terence Lewis: Bollywood dance is stuck in a rut

Choreographer Terence Lewis will open the upcoming Ignite – Festival of Contemporary Dance on January 11 in Delhi with his production, Scrambled Eggs...Or Sunny Side Up. This will be Terence’s first performance in Delhi, and the dancer-choreographer, known for his passion for contemporary dance, tells us more about his production.
Scrambled Eggs offers a whole range of emotions
This will be my first public appearance in Delhi, at the third edition of Ignite, and I’m quite excited about it.Ignite is a very special festival and they help emerging artistes, so young artistes jo perform karna chahte hain unke liye this is the right platform. A festival like this gives you the platform to showcase your talent to people who might take you to more places. My show, Scrambled Eggs, is distinctly different from other musical formats.
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This is a first of its kind, where theatre and dance meet on one stage. It is is a two-hour contemporary piece that brings to the stage an amalgamation of varied expressions through movements, incorporating diverse contemporary techniques like contact work, release technique, flying low and fighting monkey. It has eight stories, the whole set is my house... it’s my soul out there on the stage. I shall narrate eight stories through the visual medium of dance. It offers a whole range of emotions for the viewer – from awe-inspiring dances to heart wrenching stories, from thought-provoking subplots to downright hilarious comic moments. It has various episodes which include emotional moments that I have shared with people, some discussions and so on...
I’m more like a sutradhar in the show, along with 18 other dancers. Interestingly, the story will conclude with an interactive session with the crowd.
Contemporary dance is more scientific
People often get confused between the terms contemporary and classical. To make it simple, I would say classical dance form has certain fixed ideas of what is beautiful and what is not beautiful. On the other hand, contemporary dance is a fluid dance form that allows you to take from the classical but invent what is beautiful. Contemporary dance is more organic, real and it gets into the skin of the dancer, his/her emotions and thought process. It doesn’t allow artificial form of dancing; it is a more natural and scientific form of dance. Contemporary dance is like watching a movie – it’s just that in this movie there are no dialogues, you have to understand the body movements. It is important to give a modern ‘twist’ to help generate interest among people in reviving classical dance forms.
Indian audience took a while to understand Contemporary dance
Honestly speaking, it took a while for the Indian audience to understand what contemporary dance is all about. I was the first Indian to have got a scholarship to study contemporary dance in Europe. When I came back to India, there were not many people who were ready to accept this new form of dancing. They were more interested in rigid classical dance, so eventually, I started doing a few shows and slowly the audience started responding. They said, ‘Ismein kuch toh hai alag’, and that’s what caught the audience’s fancy.
Never imagined that I would become a dancer
As a kid I always wanted to perform on the stage and dancing was one of the things I wanted to do. My father was a millworker and we were eight siblings. When my father told me after schooling that he had no money to take care of me and I had to take care of myself, I had to manage my own expenses and would earn pocket money teaching kids dancing. I was very studious, but unfortunately, couldn’t afford to go in for higher studies. I always dreamt of becoming a doctor, but never imagined that I would become a dancer.”
Bollywood dance is stuck in a rut
I’m not against filmi dancing, but I feel that it’s just stuck in a rut .What has been taught a hundred years ago is still being shown. Iska matlab tumhara is sadi mein janam lene ka fayda kya hua? Tumne kya badlav laya? Wohi Radha-Krishna ki kahani bata rahe ho. Aap aaj ki Radha-Krishna ki kahani batao na... People in foreign countries are appreciating our art forms, but there is hardly any appreciation from people here in India. With all respect to all masters of Kathak, I don’t see them doing anything different from their gurujis. When are you going to go beyond that? When are you going to add your soul into it? Dance is a technology, you’ve got to upgrade it.
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