[Assam] Exercising Bollywood-Style - NYT

[Ram Sarangapani]

And they said they don't dance to our tunes! :)

--Ram

 This from the New York Times.
 Exercising Bollywood-Style [image: INSERT DESCRIPTION]David
Zalubowski/Associated Press A Bollywood-style dance class.

Bollywood-style dance classes, based on the lavish dance numbers common in
films from India, have become a popular attraction among American
exercisers, the Associated Press reports.

The American Council on Exercise told the news organization that ethnic
dancing styles like salsa, belly-dancing and now Bollywood-dancing is a
major growth area for gyms and dance studios.

Fans of Bollywood — an informal term for Hindi-language films, often
romantic musicals — want formal instruction in the style marked by
foot-stomping dance numbers that put folk moves and hip swings to pop beats.

"I was looking to try something different," says Tina Striegel, a
45-year-old accountant who tried a Denver class after falling in love with
Bollywood-style movies such as "Slumdog Millionaire," the Oscar-nominated
film inspired by Indian films that includes a large dance number at the end.

Denver's Bollywood West school started in 2006 as the first in Colorado to
focus on Bollywood-style dancing. It now packs in crowds four nights a week
to two locations and will move to a bigger studio next month.

"I love the movies. I love the culture. I love all of it," Striegel says
before stretching for an hour-long session in which more than a dozen women
practice a song-and-dance number.

Students swing their hips, raise one hand to their mouths as if calling out
to a lover, and then lift one leg and hop forward in a line. After the
number, instructor Renu Kansal reminds the dancers to wave their arms side
to side smoothly, so they don't look "too drill-team-ish." As if they were
in a Bollywood movie, the dancers are trying to tell a story of romance.

"I taught this in New York, and when we moved out here and I started
Bollywood dancing classes, I was skeptical," Kansal said in an interview. "I
was like, oh gosh, I don't know if this'll work here. But I had to double my
class offerings in under a month. It was a huge surprise to me."

A quick Google search turns up Bollywood dance instructors from New
York<http://bollywoodperformingarts.com/bollyarts/Bollywood%20Performing%20Arts%20Location.htm>to
Los
Angeles <http://www.bollywoodstepdance.com/>. To read the full story,
"Bollywood-style
Dance Classes Drawing Big Crowds," click
here<http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j0kmFqmcBF2BIZC5liI0gVShfnbAD96EHI4O1>
.