Names: Aina Vim Soler, Brbara Romina Malotti, Sandra Martn

Segura.
Professor: Maria Isabel Alonso Breto.
Subject: Postcolonial history and cultures.

INDEX

Introduction..3
Developed tasks.4
Conclusions....6
Bibliography..7

INTRODUCTION
As a students of Postcolonial history and cultures that we are, our aim of doing this
research project focused in India, specially in Indian songs and dances from 1947 to
1970, was to put in practice some interests concepts seen in class. So, to the question
why we choose India, and not other country which has been under the British
governments influence, is because of our interest in an oriental country, one which
differs from our native land. However, from a very beginning we have thought that this
English colony was victim of the assumptions that stereotypical Bollywood commercial
films and songs has passed on to the westerns along the history. Therefore, we have
wanted to discover the real face of the Postcolonial Indian history, by using the Classic
Indian cinema and dances, to let us break this stereotypes and assumptions which are so
leading in our society, even nowadays.

DEVELOPED TASKS
Taking into account the words above, we decided to structure our research project in
theree tasks. The first one it was a book which we called : Postcolonial Bollywood
Oscars awards. It was called that way, because its aim is to be a collection of the
Oscars for every category that The Postcolonial Academy of Indian cinema awards.
However, the opinion used to nominate and award was not the traditional one, because
it doesnt value the cinematographics aspects, but the most important cultural and
historical values of the Postcolonial India from 1947 to 1970. So, in the book, Aina,
Brbara and Sandra play the role of Academys judges. As a result, we have selected the
following categories: best postcolonial movie, best actor, best soundtrack (making
reference to the best lyrics) and to the best director. According to the selection criteria,
the key facts that we considered most important in the films were the references to the
independence of India, the formation of Pakistan state, the plurality in terms of
religions, including Christian and Muslim religions, not only the Hinduism and their
mythological beliefs.
The second tasks, is an album which we called Learning to dance Bhangra. In this
book, the observer can see the main steps of this folklorical dance, performed by Judith,
an amateur dancer of Bhangra of an

Indian association :Din tak Bhangra and

Bollywood Dance Academy. Moreover, we have accompanied the album with a video
of the basic steps of this dance ( availability in youtube: https://youtu.be/tYdJqrsKKX4 .
What Judith taught us, was basically that she broke the stereotypes of Indian dancers,
because in her association not only the women dance, but also the men. She has also
told us that the majority of western people think that Bollywood is the only Indian film
industry, maybe because they have been influenced by Slumdog millionaire.
However, almost every city has its own production of Indian cinema.
4

Last but not least, the artistic representation of Nataraj, the lord of the dance,
completes our research project. We decided to paint with temperas our own Nataraj,
with the colours which we like. The reason why we have opted for this artistic painting
is because, we want to get involved in somehow, with a dance activity, but as the steps
of Bhangra are not so easy for beginners, we chose painting the image of Nataraj, as a
symbolic way of honoring this god, because all dancers try to imitate some Natarajs
movement, therefore we want to imitate this behavior, but by painting instead of
dancing.

CONCLUSIONS
After finishing our research project we reach to a set of conclusions:
Firstly, although Orientalism by Edward Said, was written in 1978, his ideas about the
assumptions and stereotypes that people have about The Orient are still very present in
our society. Specially, in the subject that we have focused on, is quite relevant the
wrong perspective that the western cinema and media have spread to the spectators
minds, in particular, about Bollywood. Contrary to people belief, We have reached the
conclusion that Bollywood is a wider industry, and it is not a realistic reflect of Indian
society. However, as we are focus on postcolonial India, we bumped into classic
Bollywood films, which are a reflect not only of the key facts of Postcolonial India(
Independence from British colony, religion diversity, the romance not approved by
parents, the unfair caste system), but also about traditional dances, such as Khatak and
Bhangra, and not the prototypical crazy dancing of Slumdog Millonaire.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://filmmakersfans.com/famous-bollywood-hindi-scripts-download/
http://www.jamuura.com/blog/must-read-hindi-scripts/
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls057642554/
https://nononsensewithnuwansen.wordpress.com/tag/1800s/page/3/
https://mrandmrs55.com/
http://shaijavallikatri.blogspot.com.es/2011/01/patriotic-songs.html
http://www.bollynook.com/en/search/
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-asia/south-asia/hindu-art/a/shiva-as-lordof-the-dance-nataraja
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18686742

Said, Edward. Introduction to Orientalism. Dosier I, an Itroduction to Postcolonial

and Cultural Studies. Isabel Alonso and Maria Grau. London: Routledege and Kegan,
1978. 61.

Kumar, Sangeet. "Postcolonial identity in a globalizing India: case studies in visual,

musical and oral culture." PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2010.
http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/3328.

Hoene, Christin.Music and identity in postcolonial British-South Asian literature. New

York : Routledge, 2015.Print.