An attempted clever one-liner about Indian dance classes in British schools has landed Prime Minister David Cameron in a bit of a spot with his own famous alma mater Eton College where, it seems, Bollywood-style dance is the new “in” thing.
Stung by Mr Cameron’s criticism that schools were substituting sports classes with “things like Indian dancing or whatever”, a London-based Bollywood dance company let it out that Eton was one of the schools which utilised its services. The BBC seized on it to invite members of the Bollywood Dance London on to the sets of its highbrow current affairs programme Newsnight to perform a popular song-and-dance number. Studio guests watched with amusement as the place reverberated with “Anarkali Disco Chali”, a Malaika Arora-Khan number from House Full 2.
The presenter Stephanie Flanders said that after the Prime Minister’s rather non-sporting remarks about Indian dance, “we thought we would do something to cheer him up by bringing a highly-athletic Indian dance which is taught in schools all over south-east [England[ including, it seems, Eton College”.
Sports cuts
Mr. Cameron made the remarks in a television interview while defending his government’s decision to scrap the target of two hours a week of sports in schools laid down by the previous Labour Government.
“The trouble we’ve had with target [for state schools] up to now, which was two hours a week, is that a lot of schools were meeting that by doing things like Indian dancing or whatever, that you and I probably wouldn’t think of as sport,” he said though he hastened to add that he had nothing against Indian dance.
Keywords: David Cameron, Eton College, Bollywood-style dance, Indian dance
David Cameron may not be impressed with the Bollywood Dance London's dancing. The only highly-athletic Indian dance includes the acrobatic karanas of classical Indian dance. Many karanas are already performed in rhythmic gymnastics which is an Olympic sport. Of course, rhythmic gymnasts perform the karanas far better than the best bharatanatyam dancers in India. Hasan Suroor should find it out for himself.
Had David Cameron seen some Bharatanatyam dancers perform items full of difficult karanas at a wide range of speeds, he would not have said what he did. Even then, David Cameron could probably say that NONE of the classical Indian dancers today can perform the acrobatic karanas as perfectly as an average English gymnast does.
to consider running around trees and making facial expressions like idiots for a song as an Indian dance, is an insult to the many different classical dance forms we have. This should even be in the news.
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