Tough to promote Indian dance: Remo D`Souza

Indian youth is more inclined towards western dance forms than Indian classical forms, laments choreographer Remo D`Souza. Read more.

Mumbai: Indian youth is more inclined towards western dance forms like B-boying, hip-hop and jazz and their interest in Indian classical forms is diminishing, laments choreographer Remo D`Souza, who couldn`t find any takers to release his Bengali film on Chhau dance."The whole scene has changed. People come to me and say, `I want to make my son a dancer`. We never had this. In my time, my father would have slapped me if I was to say I want to become a dancer. It`s a huge change," Remo told IANS.

"We try to promote Indian dance, but we know that people, majorly youth, doesn`t want to watch it. They prefer more western forms," he added. Talking about his first directorial venture, Bengali film ‘Lal Pahare`r Katha’, he said: "I made my first Bengali film based on Chhau dance - a traditional Indian tribal art form. I won a lot of praise for it in the US, Germany and other countries, but in India, nobody released that film because nobody wants to watch it." Keeping the fate of ‘Lal Pahare`r Katha’ in mind, the 38-year-old, who became popular as a judge on dance reality show ‘Dance India Dance’, chose to take the beaten path. "That pushed me to make `F.A.L.T.U.`, a commercial film. Now in my next directorial `ABCD` (AnyBody Can Dance), I have tried to balance both dance forms. When you see the film, which is shot in 3D, you would see a balance between Indian and Western dance forms," he said. In the meantime he is happy that the fifth season of ‘Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa’ will strike a good balance among all dance forms. Remo is one of the judges on the show along with dancing diva Madhuri Dixit and filmmaker Karan Johar. IANS