Bollywood Dance Lesson Plan 

Duration: 90 Minutes

Subject: Storytelling, Dance, & Cultural Studies

Facilitator: Alka Nayyar

Month: March

Creator: Farah Amanda Bobbitt

Introduction

Dancing traditional or stylized dances can cause a sense of surrender and joy. Seeing participants swirl and move can promote instant bonding. This workshop allows students to engage in gleeful harmony as they meticulously create dancing circles, craft stories with their hands and feet, and swiveling hips from side to side. Dancers sway side by side as the music envelopes them. The native sounds of Indian music caressing them on this foreign land with their bodies falling suit to recalling the familiar spaces of home.

Essential Questions

• Why does dance matter?

• How do you convey messages through dance?

• How does the heritage of dance relate to epistemologies?

National Core Art Standards 

 https://www.nationalartsstandards.org/content/national-core-arts-standards 

• The Arts as Communication

• Arts as Culture, History, and Connectors

• Arts as Community Engagement

Goals

These goals connect across the lesson plans as cultural knowledge building. 

• Participants express themselves through dance

• Participants connect to culture in a dance circle

• Participants explore community engagement as an act of performance

Objectives

In this lesson participants will…

• Use their body as a mode of expression

• Create bonds with rhythm and movement

• Perform a choreographed routine in connection and circle with each other

Outline of Learning Plan

Grounding, 10 minutes: Why do people dance? 

Body warm-up and isolation, 20 minutes: Using various techniques, participants will dance in a circle to prepare learning the routine. They will practice communal dancing.

Choreographed routines, 40 minutes: Alka sets the scene for the Bollywood-style dance by explaining what is happening in the song, what the lyrics mean, and why we are dancing. Participants will learn the routine and explore a variety of Bollywood music.

Performance, 20 minutes: Participants will share routines and then discuss the process of dancing Bollywood style. They will reflect on their movements and their significance. 

Assessment

Performance of dance routine

Post-Workshop Survey

If the archivist does not have enough time to speak with everyone they can do the survey post workshop on iPads. 

Annotated List of Resources

Alka Nayyar at the Ceyx Series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-79y6vJ2ww This video is a more traditional piece that Alka performed. It is shared here to demonstrate the way bodies can tell stories. 

Bollywood Dance Class: Old Town School of Folk Music: https://www.facebook.com/oldtownschool/videos/last-chance-to-sign-up-for-a-fall-dance-class-a-new-session-is-just-getting-star/802108904178941/ This video clip is a sneak peak into Alka’s classroom. The variety of musical songs show the range to Bollywood dancing. 

Getting to know Alka Nayyar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdTkJ-hpH3U Alka as a performer has been in many shows. She speak about the experience of the retired Bollywood actress she plays who now lives in Michigan. She also speaks about how people can build a sense of belonging and there is a “profound sense of joy” in the communities we build and belong to. 

Image credit: "Mystique Rainbow" from The Shanti Home