Team work, camaraderie or just for fun, many youngsters are turning to dancing in groups. Call it an influence of television shows or just another way to spend time with friends, dance and choreography has become the “in” thing now. While earlier seasons of these shows brought forms like locking and popping, B-boying, in the limelight, now, duet and group dances are haute.
Aastha Agarwal, a DU student, who has been learning dance for almost three years now, thinks dancing is always fun if performed in a group.
“When I was learning, it was more about knowing the forms and steps, thus I had to do it alone. Now, with my friends, we choreograph moves on different tracks. Besides, better coordination, it also teaches us how to blend two or three forms together,” says Aastha, who recently performed a group contemporary dance blended with Bollywood style in her college fest. Santosh Nair, creative head of the dance academy, Sadhya, says that learning in a group has become a trend among youngsters. “Former students form a group and come to us to learn how to perform,” he says adding that forms like hip-hop, contemporary, Latino, salsa, samba and jive are also getting popular.
Choreographer Terence Lewis, further talks about the new group dance forms. “Tectonics, tutting, house, whacking lyrical are all forms that are great to perform in a group,” he adds.