8:03am Thursday 7th June 2007
By Emma Clayton
Boy meets girl, boy courts girl, boy fights for girl, boy dances with girl and eventually boy marries girl. And it all unfolds against a backdrop of dance, music, 30ft water fountains, explosions and 140 costumes.
It could only be Bollywood - and it's coming to Bradford's Centenary Square this weekend.
Around 30,000 visitors have been pouring into Yorkshire this week for the four-day Bollywood Oscars' extravaganza, beamed worldwide to an audience of 500 million.
The culmination of the International Indian Film Academy awards weekend is Saturday's glittering awards ceremony at Sheffield's Hallam FM Arena, and a county-wide fringe festival has been launched to celebrate.
Bradford starts celebrating today with a city centre Bollywood Bazaar. The highlight of Bradford's festival is Bollywood Steps, a spectacular song and dance show described as a glorious and irreverent celebration of Bollywood films'. It features water and light effects, pyrotechnics, outrageous props', colourful costumes and all the glamour, courtship, comedy and action of Bollywood.
Intriguingly, the show uses the architecture and energy of towns and cities as a natural stage, celebrating the changes in mood and motion of public spaces.
The show celebrates these - and Bollywood itself - in a series of typically exciting dance numbers incorporating bhangra, hip hop, break dancing, classical Indian, creative, salsa, jazz, flamenco and contemporary, with some Busby Berkeley thrown in!
"Something magical happens when you transform a public place," says producer Julian Rudd. "There's an element of danger and chance in an outdoor arena that you don't get in a theatre.
"Thousands of people cross Centenary Square but this performance brings a new perspective and a sense of ownership. People will remember this show every time they walk across the square.
"The Bradford site is as near to perfect as we could have had; it has a fantastic town hall, with its wonderful gargoyles, and a public square providing a sense of intimacy. Our productions work best in spaces like this, there's a connection with the audience that comes with a public arena."
The show draws on traditional elements of Bollywood - glamour, romance, action, comedy, a kaleidoscope of costumes, a dazzling light display, even a wet sari scene - and adds a dramatic fusion of classic and contemporary dance styles.
"There's boy meets girl, the courtship and, as with nearly every Bollywood film, a magnificent wedding scene," says Julian. "The (City Hall) staircase is decorated with flowers where the groom is waiting for his bride's dramatic entrance. The wedding scene includes a large water effect shooting 30ft into the air.
"Bollywood isn't complete without exciting dance numbers, a fusion of dance styles and music such as folk, classical, bhangra, hip hop, jazz, salsa and contemporary.
"The director/choreographer Simmy Gupta has also touched on Busby Berkeley's Hollywood and combined this with an array of props, clever use of smoke and pyrotechnics.
"It's very much inspired by Bollywood but it's a British, irreverent take on it. It's done with a sense of humour that anyone who knows about Bollywood will understand, but by no means is it a show that can only be enjoyed by audiences familiar with Bollywood. It's glamorous and slick, a visual 40-minute treat."
A dazzle of light and water displays, props and pyrotechnics must present a challenge to a cast consisting of 24 dancers and live drummers. The performers also have quick costume changes over seven scenes.
"The dancers get wet which can be tricky, but it's all carefully choreographed," says Julian. "The pyrotechnics are designed to be used in close proximity to performers. It's similar to what you see in football stadiums.
"It's a big show and we have a large technical team - there are as many crew as performers. The gigantic water effects pay reference to famous scenes from films, they're striking images."
The show was created by Nutkhut, a company specialising in bold, site-specific performances. Combining theatre, dance, music, circus and film, it creates imaginative, witty and striking performances.
Previous projects include Bollywood on Bikes, involving 25 bikes running riot in a town square, and the first British Asian stilt-walkers!
Bollywood Steps follows the tradition of Bollywood movies which often create large-scale dance numbers set in the hustle and bustle of familiar outdoor locations.
Increasing numbers of Bollywood films are being shot in Britain, and this week key figures from India's film industry gathered at Harewood House, at the invitation of regional film agency Screen Yorkshire, to explore the county's film-making heritage and future potential.
"There's a very strong link between Britain and the sub-continent, and images of Britain are romanticised in India the way we romanticise Paris or New York," says Julian. "One of the reasons why these awards have come to Yorkshire is that there are so many film locations here. It's fantastic that Yorkshire beat New York, Paris and Barcelona to host this event, and it's great that we can bring a show like this to Bradford. That says a lot about the Council's vision."
Sheena Wrigley, head of theatre, arts and festivals at Bradford Council said: "Bollywood Steps is one of the most exciting large-scale dance productions of the last few years, and we're delighted to bring it to Bradford and show it against the stunning backdrop of Centenary Square.
"We wanted to mark the IIFAs in a very different way to everywhere else by staging something that captured all the glamour and colour of Bollywood and at the same time was fun and vibrant."
The final performance of Bollywood Steps follows Saturday's live broadcast of the IIFA awards ceremony on the BBC Big Screen in Centenary Square. There will be footage of the red carpet arrival of stars including Shilpa Shetty and Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan, and introducing the coverage will be a lively montage of Yorkshire images set to the Kaiser Chiefs' Ruby.
The bid for the 2007 IIFA Weekend was undertaken by Yorkshire Tourist Board with the support of Yorkshire Forward. The event is expected to generate £10 million of tourism spending.
Yorkshire Culture chief executive Gary Topp says: "The IIFA Fringe is a fantastic opportunity to animate the region's city centres and showcase Yorkshire's public spaces. The Fringe is a perfect example of the added value the cultural sector brings to major events in the region and is a stunning illustration of the strength of partnership that we have here."
Neil Jenkinson, Head of Culture and Major events at Yorkshire Forward adds: "When we bid to bring the IIFA awards to the region, we wanted to make sure the event itself generated a domino effect for the region - spreading far beyond the awards event itself. The fringe festival has done just that and is just one example of the fantastic legacy the IIFA weekend will bring to our region."
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/trade_directory/