SHAlINI SAKSENA caught with the actors and the team behind the new musical extravaganza — Beyond Bollywood — that will enthrall you at Kingdom Of Dreams
Move over glitzy romance and spine chilling horror on the silver screen. With Broadways and theatrical musicals foraying into the entertainment landscape, how we see the industry has changed. But not everything about the filmi duniyaan is about glam; there is whole world outside of the 70 mm space.
With this concept in mind, a team comprising of Salim-Sulaiman, Rajeev Goswami, and Irfan Siddiqui have come together to bring you a theatrical musical — Beyond Bollywood — which has already completed 100 shows on stage in places like Algeria, Belgium, Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy. Not only this, it is the only musical from India to have performed at the West End Theatre in london.
There is a reason why this show went abroad and toured for over a year before it came to India. “We decided to take this show outside of India first because there are so many people who love Bollywood — the kind of films that we are doing and the rich Indian culture that defines us. We wanted to showcase an aspect of India through this stage show,” Salim Merchant tells you, who along with Sulaiman, has given the music for this show. The duo have also given nine original compositions for this musical.
Interestingly, the show that was originally in English except for the Bollywood songs has been rewritten for the Indian audience in Hindi by Akash Gupta, who plays a few characters in the stage show.
Gupta, who has been roped in for this musical in the India leg tells you that he had a lot of fun in doing the translations as with adding a few more pros as opposed to what the original show had. One is told that reason for this is that the audience abroad doesn’t necessarily understand English but they do understand music and dance. Hence, there were less dialogues given to the actors.
As for the actors, they are still trying to adjust to the Hindi version. Though they have been rehearsing for three months, they have not had as much stage presence — less than 10 — to get into the Indian mode.
“Once you have done 100 shows in English, to sudden turn track and do the same thing in Hindi takes some adjustment. Also, some of the actors and dancers had to be changed since it is not possible to get all the 75 dancers from Mumbai. But we are having a lot more fun here. Since the audience understands the significance of certain songs like Tip tip barsa pani as opposed to It’s raining men that people in the West would identify with and have fun,” Mohit (26), who is an engineer by profession but has been dancing for approximately seven years. Mohit, a boy from Delhi, plays Raghav in the musical and his leading lady, Ana Ilmi (25) plays Shelly who is also from Delhi.
Ilmi who has been dancing for the last eight years shifted base to Mumbai three years back since there are more opportunities there. “How the audience reacts to the show really makes a lot of difference and the fun element kicks in when the viewers react in a positive manner,” She says.
In fact, all the five actors have a similar take and tells you that while they are all professional dancers and actors reflects on stage whether they are having fun or not; not that the audience will be able to make out the difference. Also, each time they are on stage, the feel and the chemistry is different.
“It will not be fair that just because people are not enjoying you let your performance slip on stage. At the end of the day, these people have bought a ticket and it is our duty as performers to give it our 110 per cent,” Mohit tells you.
What makes this musical for an interesting watch is that it is not something that Delhi-NCR gets to see on a regular basis even though there have been shows like Zangoora andJhumroo which has a lot more pros than pure dancing. Beyond Bollywood on the other hand has plenty of dancing and little pros. It is a heartwarming story of a dancer Shelly who dreams of making her mother’s dream a reality — to bring to stage the best act ever to be performed. She sets out in search of her roots and comes to India. Through her story, the audience will get to see some great fusion in terms of dancing and grand theatrical experience that gives us a taste of the culture of the country. The dancers will enthrall you and take you in to world that has lots of colour and magic.
But to bring such a show in stage requires some hard work. “You have no idea what it takes to make such a show. It is so difficult to do it. We (Sulaiman and I) are contemporary musicians in the film industry. To understand the spirit of kathak, to understand the spirit of all the different dances, the vast culture of the country and the folk dances — it is not easy to step out of your comfort zone and learn all these incredible folk dances. I feel enriched and knowledgeable after having put out this show. What I have learnt during this entire journey is something that will stay with me and my soul forever. I have embraced my country and my culture in a much wider sense now. It has changed me as a human being. Earlier, my Twitter status was musician, composer, parent, Indian Idol judge. But now, the status on my Twitter handle is Indian, parent, music composer, singer, Indian Idol,” Salim tells you.
Even at a professional level, it has changed him. “As a professional, I have embraced performance and fallen in love with stage. Sulaiman and I were so involved with making music in studios but that has changed. We want to do music for films but we also want to do a lot of live stuff. “Though we love to be in the studio, for the last few years we have been getting out there on the stage. We do around 60-70 concerts that takes us all over the world. We wanted to create magic on stage. When we got the opportunity to do so on such a large scale we jumped at it. It took us a year-and-a-half to put everything together,” Salim tells you adding that to bring this show to Delhi-NCR and show a glimpse of beyond Bollywood feels amazing.
“This musical is another wing about which we feel very happy, powerful and positive about. I am happy that Kingdom Of Dreams has staged it. For now, we will run this show for another couple of years and make it even more beautiful that what it is and incorporate other things like the demand to have Haryanvi folk dance,” Salim says.