Recently, we watched an episode of the Comedy Circus that had a hilarious skit about a conversation between 2 hindi film background female dancers. The skit was presented funnily enough by a duo of males and it reminded me of the multitude of dance troupes that might have earned employment due to the background dancing. Surely, each choreographer must have had his/ her own dancers. Each had a dedicated or lucky troupe.
In the cabaret songs of the 70s, there was a repetitive face prancing around with Helen. I was watching 'Monica, my darling' on TV, one day. A guy with a curly mop of hair and a pencil-moustache started his jumping act to the music. My dad pointed out to me that his name is Michael and he is a choreographer, too. I have noticed him in more songs that I cannot recall now. But that is probably how I started noticing the background dancers, too.
In the 80s, there was the group of male dancers that was seen in 'Jahaan chaar yaar' (Sharaabi) as well 'Padosan apni murgi ko' (Jaadugar) and some more Amitabh songs.
During the 90s, in the days of 'Superhit Muqabla', there was one male dancer that used to appear in 5 out of 10 songs. He was the one who did the hip-hop rapper dance to the voice of Bali Bramhabhatt with Jackie Shroff. The song was 'Munda Dekh' from the movie Stuntman. 'Bambai ka babu' had a scene shot in Fantasy Land where Saif calls 'Mangesh' to do some task and Mangesh runs off a kid asked to get an ice cream - a wide smile on the face. One could not miss this guy dancing sincerely behind the hero and more importantly, enjoying himself even while doing the stupidest of the dancing steps. The songs were always a big hit, but the films were bigger flops. The producers must have noticed this coincidence because I have not spotted Mangesh for quite some time.
The producers should stop allowing Ganesh any screen appearances for the same reason. Every film that Ganesh appears in to dance flops. He is responsible for the dismal fate of 'Jaanam Samjha Karo', 'Money hai toh Honey hai', 'China Gate' to name a few.
In the recent times, there is a very pretty female dancer who has appeared in some popular songs of recent times. She has rolled her eyes with Abhishek in 'Say na say na' (Bluffmaster), had a better tummy than Kareena in 'Its Rocking' (Wah kya love story hai) and even fluttered her colourful long skirt behind Govinda in 'Soni de nakhre' (Partner). Go look for this square jawed girl.
By the way, I m still searching for the mp3 of Shankar Mahadevan's version of 'Hoga tumse pyara kaun'.
