Harsh Reality For Bollywood Background Dancers: 'Now It’s All About Pretty Faces'

20 years ago, when the movie with an appealing plot and impressive casts was on screen, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, they need hundreds of background dancer for a dance sequence in 6 on 8 songs of the movie.

In contrary, in 2018, even excellent soundtrack like the one of Raazi and Andhadhun do not need any background dancers. For Badhaai Ho, they only need very few dancers for one song sequence.

Anupama Chopra, a film critic, commented:

Recently, high-quality productions like Mukkabaaz and Manmarziyaan pushed the experiment to a higher development when only have two young girls in song sequence DhayaanChand of Manmarziyaan, and one male dancer of rap song sequence Paintra of Mukkabaaz.

The changing made the room smaller for even background dancers with professional backgrounds like the 38 years old dancer Surendra ‘Suri’ Pevekar. To pursue his life aim, become a full-time Bollywood dancer, he had to struggle, build up his network, work at a bank and join Bharatanatyam classes.

Actually, just 10 years ago, he had opportunities to work with big names in the industry like Remo D’Souza, Terence Lewis, Ganesh Acharya, and Saroj Khan. Moreover, he could be spotted on the background of Kapoors, Khans, Kumars and, Roshan.

The dancer realised that everything is changing; there were the increases in foreigner and college student. People were accepting lower wage with more extended working hours. Dance coordinators directly connect to their agents instead of finding the supports from large troupes and artistes associations.

The number of phone calls to Pevekar has decreased, and he only got only one contract a month, sometimes two months.

General secretary of the Cine Dancers Association (CDA), Ravi Kanwar, shared his experiences:

SOMETHINGS IS GOING DOWN

When it is harder to have a dancing contract, many dancers have become dance tutors for children and hobbyists. A 30 years old dance instructor, Sunny Vadav, shared his shock when first saw his colleague driving a taxi and the reason for that career switching is that he must survive. In contrast to the demand which is going down, the number of requirements for a dancer has increased and became more specific. Casting coordinators might require a dancer to be pretty, young, light-eyed, fair, light-haired, and many more.

An anonymous choreographer revealed that male dancers have less opportunity compared to female dancers. 

A COMPREHENSIVE VIEW

Raj Surani pointed out the root of changes in the industry: 

 Raj Suran was a background dancer before becoming the founder of Octopus Entertainment; he is now acting as a connector between film producers and backup dancers.

Nowadays, dancers do not need member cards of any association, all they need is meet the requirement of the film directors, and they can earn, averagely, Rs 70,000 a month.

Why he could earn that much? Ironically, while the daily income of CDA member is higher than any dancer who is not a member of CDA, approximately RS 2,500 to Rs 3,000, they might have less work as there are more strings attached.

FOREIGN DANCERS IN INDIA

As the industry has changed, there are fewer songs which require to have many dancers on the background. Also, film producers are looking for younger dancers and foreigner dancers.

Laura Philpot is a foreigner dancer from New Zealand. It has been under six months since the time she arrived in India, and she had chances to dance in Fanney Khan with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, in Zero with Katrina Kaif, and in Student of the Year 2 with Will Smith.

Surani stated that 12 dancers come from other countries registered with his company and them could earn around Rs 10,000 to 15,000 per day.