The trailer of 2020’s first release Bhangra Paa Le will make your soul and sole dance in unison. An entire film based on the Bhangra dance form seems a little outlandish. But then dance is an integral part of our culture’s emotional profile. We dance in joy, and yes we dance in grief too.
Bhangra Paa Le, directed by debutant Sneha Taurani conveys the energy level needed to boost the Bhangra to an art form. The young lead playing rivals on the dance floor (just like Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor in Street Dancer 3D, but we’ll come to that later) are fresh-faced and eager to show their dancing skills.
Looking at Sunny Kaushal (he’s Vicky’s kid brother) and Rukhsar Dhillon, I get the feeling we’ll have two new talents entering Bollywood in the first week of 2020. Kaushal (not exactly a newcomer, as he has done a couple of films earlier) and Dhillon (she’s done 3 Telugu films and one Kannada film) are fresh-faced energetic and eager to burn up the dancefloor.
As we see them make that dance journey from rural Punjab to London, another plot in the past involving another Bhangra-fixated hero also unfolds. Quick on their feet the young leads in the trailer of Bhangra Paa Le celebrate an Indian dance form rather than the hybridized hip-hop-tango-salsa that passes off as dance in our cinema these days.
More power to the Bhangra. Interestingly the film’s producers RSVP had a game-changing hit Uri a year ago in January 2019. Bhangra Paa Le could do to the dance genre what Uri did to war cinema in Bollywood. It’s been a while since we danced in the aisle.