Bolly-What?

More commonly known as Bollywood (Bombay + Hollywood), the Indian film industry is the largest in the world, pushing the 1,000 mark in terms of the number of films produced annually. The dancing in Bollywood films, especially older ones, is primarily modeled on Indian dance: classical dance styles, dances of historic northern Indian courtesans (tawaif) or folk dances. The dance sequences in Bollywood movies are referred to as “Bollywood,” ”Bollywood dance” or “filmi dance,” for lack of a better term. When digging into the more technical breakdown of Bollywood dance, one finds that it is quite difficult to categorize it as one style. Depending on the choreographer’s taste and style, as well as the actors in the cast’s fields of training, the result may be perceived as more or less “Indian” in styling.