Abhishek Dubey
Internationally acclaimed dancer choreographer Sandip Soparrkar is always surrounded with controversies, last was regarding his performance at the Royal wedding in London and dating Britney Spears during choreographing her Music Video Womenizer. Each time the nibble footed dancer steps on the floor it creates ripples world over, this time too Sandip Soparrkar found himself surrounded with yet another controversy. Sandip Soparrkar and his team of dancers were in Guwahati, Assam to dance for Rohhit Verma fashion show. The creative dancer choreographer mixed live Bihu music and song and danced the traditional Brazilian Samba to it. Little did he realise that this fusion dance which he created did not go down well with a few cultural organisations in Assam. There were people on the streets asking for an apology from the organisers and the choreographer for hurting and insulting Assamese culture with such a fusion.
The local people ripped the Samba- Bihu Fusion apart calling it Bollywood dance and saying it was disrespectful to the North East Indian culture. The controversy and anger of people grew even more when Sandip Soparrkar refused to give an apology for what he had created. Sandip Soparrkar said “My dance was a blend of authentic Bihu Music and traditional Samba dance, i did not change the bihu music to fit samba dance nor did i change samba dance to fit into bihu music, they both were used in its pure form, they just blended in so well, it was not a bollywood dance at all like some people are saying.”
Looks like Sandip Soparrkar’s efforts to take Bihu globally were not taken well with the people of Assam and it will be long before his efforts will be recognised by the cultural police.
