Since the trailer of Sunny Deol’s film ‘Jat’, there is a good excitement for this film in public. Now the first song of the film has come, which is named ‘Touch Kiya’. This is Urvashi Rautela’s dance number, which is not actually part of the film’s cast. She is only doing this dance number in ‘Jat’. Recently, in the Telugu film ‘Daku Maharaj’, Urvashi also performed a dance number of ‘Dabidi Dabidi’, in which her dance step was very criticized.
On one hand, a typical Hindi masala entertainer is not complete without dance number. At the same time, there is also a lot of criticism of provocative dance steps, which fulfills the sexual image of these songs and these lyrics. A few years ago, such songs were also called ‘item number’. But after giving a lot of debate in the society giving new directions to the morals, it was decided that this ‘item’ is not correct and is going to object to women. Since then these songs came to be called ‘dance number’.
However, this did not affect the effects of these songs and they are still in films. Apart from the debate of ‘item number’ or ‘dance number’, have you thought that these songs came in films? Let’s tell …
What are these ‘dance numbers’?
‘Item Number’ was actually asked for the kind of songs that had nothing to do with the story of the film. The makers started giving a light moment to the audience as this song amid the drama, seriousness and development of the story. There is a song on the screen that has a dancer, who entertains the audience with his style. The lyrics of such songs should be thrilling, the clothes of the dancer should be extra fashionable according to their era and tie the attention of the audience (most men) sitting in the theater.
At that time, there was also a fixed style of dance in films. In such a situation, freestyle dance, especially when a woman is performing a symbol of a unforginal symbol, which was considered very ‘sexy’ according to that era. This separate presentation, which was a public attention, was called ‘item number’. That is, this part in the film is a ‘item’ attracting the audience. Gradually, they also started becoming a part of the marketing of the film.
On understanding the development of films, it seems that the dancer, who performed in this ‘item’, started calling the audience ‘item girl’ and a special image was also associated with it. In the language of the film industry’s land Bombay (now Mumbai), the word ‘item’ got a sexual color from here, which started the exercise to speak ‘item number’ to the ‘item number’ later to get rid of the ‘Dance number’.
Popularity of Kuku’s dance numbers
In the 40s, a dancer named Kuku More in Hindi films became very popular in such songs. There is not much in history about her except that she was an Anglo-Indian. He did many dance numbers in the films of that era which was sometimes cabaret songs, sometimes party and club songs. The dance of ‘Kuku’ dance first appeared in director Mehboob Khan’s film ‘Anokhi Ada’ (1948). There are no lyrics in this song, only the orchestra is playing and many dancers including Kuku are performing on the stage.
Mehboob Khan introduced Kuku in a proper dance number in his film ‘Awara’ (1951), named ‘Ek Do Teen Aaja Mausam is colorful.’ This song has a club type scene where Kuku is doing amazing dance while singing. The way the hero Raj Kapoor and all the other men present in the scene are looking towards Kuku, they may have also had a reaction of all the men sitting in theaters at that time. Reports say that in 1949, Kuku performed dance numbers in 17 films. She appeared in many films like ‘Shabistan’ (1951), ‘Aan’ (1952) and ‘Andaz’ (1949).
Kuku’s fire was such that she used to charge 6 thousand rupees for dance in a film, which was a huge amount in the 50s. He used to have three different luxury cars, one of which was only for his dog. Kuku’s status was such that he got many new actors work in the film industry. He also had a 13 -year -old girl, whose family ran away from Burma and came to India. Kuku got this girl a place between her background dancers in many of her films like ‘Awara’ and ‘Shabistan’. The girl’s name was Helen, with whom the second round of cabaret came in Hindi films.
Famous trio of ‘cabaret dance’
Helen, who was a background dancer behind Kuku, got a big break from the film ‘Howrah Bridge’ in 1958. In this film’s iconic song ‘Mera Naam Chin Chu Chu’, Helen gave such a performance that then people wanted to see him in dance numbers. Helen performed all the dance numbers in his career, including ‘Tu Mungra’-like desi bar, ‘Piya Tu Ab To Aaja’ like Cabre and ‘Tora Mana Bada Papi’ also had semi-skills songs.
In the world of dance numbers in the 60s and 70s decade, Helen had a unanimous secret of Helen and his dance number in the film itself was a way to pull the audience to theaters. However, during this period, Bindu and Aruna Irani also entered the films, which were doing wonders in acting as well as dance numbers. All three played the characters of Vamp in dance numbers and films in their era. Where songs like Bindu’s ‘Hungama Hua Gaya’ and ‘Yeh Havas Kya Hai’ became very popular. At the same time, Aruna Irani performed tremendous hit dance numbers like ‘Chadati Jawani Meri Chal Mastani’ and ‘Kalis Ka Chaman’.
Lead actresses handle the front
In the era of 70s and 80s, two such actresses were high in Hindi films, which completely changed the style of actresses in films- Parveen Babi and Zeenat Aman. Both of them were given the status of ‘sex siren’ at that time. These actresses started excluding the word ‘item girl’ from trend because she was not only doing the ‘dance number’ of the film, but was also the lead heroine of the story.
In his own films, Parveen Babi performed songs like ‘Raat Baqi Baat Baqi’ and ‘Jawani Jaanman Haseen Dilruba’. While Zeenat performed dance numbers like ‘Laila O Laila’ and ‘Bachake Rahe Re Baba’ in her films. In this era, there was not only a cabaret in dance numbers, but many different types of styles became popular.
Malaika Arora made a career with ‘dance numbers’
In the modern round, where the lead actresses remained the trend of dancing in their film, Malaika Arora came into the industry as a proper dancing girl. Since 2000s, he is the biggest name in the industry who made his career with only dance number. In an interview, she has also said that she is not interested in full time acting.
Malaika started with the song ‘Chaiyan Chaiyan’ in Shah Rukh Khan’s film ‘Dil Se’ (1998). His names are recorded many iconic dance numbers like ‘Munni Badnaam Hui’, ‘Anarkali Disco Chali’, ‘Lip Jasle’ and ‘Mahi Way’. Apart from Malaika in 2000s, another name is found of Yana Gupta, who did only dance numbers in films.
In the modern round, the talk of dance numbers without Katrina Kaif is not complete. The ‘Chikni Chameli’ of ‘Agneepath’ (2012) is a rare dance number of Katrina that she did in the film in which she did not have her own role. Otherwise, most of Katrina’s dance numbers are in their own films, whether ‘Sheela’s youth’ or ‘Kamali’.
Mail actors also performed such songs
In the changing times, mail actors also started doing dance numbers and they include some big names. Abhishek Bachchan started doing the dance number of the actors with the song ‘Kya Maine Sawa’ from the film ‘Rakta’ (2004). This song was a remake of English pop band Blue’s popular song ‘One Love’ and became very popular.
Shah Rukh Khan did a dance number in the film ‘Kaal’ (2005). Hrithik Roshan, who is specially recognized for her dance, did a great dance number in the film ‘Crazy 4’ (2008). Ranbir Kapoor’s dance number ‘Hat Ja Re Chokre’ was also very popular in the film ‘Chillar Party’ (2011). Salman Khan also performed a song in Shah Rukh Khan’s film ‘Zero’ (2018), which can be called dance number.
Talking about the last few years, Nora Fatehi, Jacqueline Fernandes and Mouni Roy are some actresses who are doing dance numbers in films along with acting. In this episode, Urvashi Rautela also comes to name, whose dance number in ‘Jat’ is now in discussion. It remains to be seen whether his dance number can give Sunny’s film a big success or not.