Bollywood in the Big Apple

A spontaneous explosion of music, dance, and color briefly filled Times Square on Tuesday.
Bollywood in the Big Apple
Dancers dressed in colorful Indian garb and disguised in everyday clothes perform a dance captures the attention of passer byers. (Cliff Jia/The Epoch Times)
8/5/2009
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/Bollywood1.jpg" alt="Dancers dressed in colorful Indian garb and disguised in everyday clothes perform a dance captures the attention of passer byers. (Cliff Jia/The Epoch Times)" title="Dancers dressed in colorful Indian garb and disguised in everyday clothes perform a dance captures the attention of passer byers. (Cliff Jia/The Epoch Times)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1826926"/></a>
Dancers dressed in colorful Indian garb and disguised in everyday clothes perform a dance captures the attention of passer byers. (Cliff Jia/The Epoch Times)
NEW YORK—A spontaneous explosion of music, dance, and color briefly filled Times Square on Tuesday. A flash mob of dancers dressed mostly in traditional Indian garb spontaneously appeared on Military Island and burst into a choreographed dance at precisely 2:40 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon to promote IFC’s(Independent Film Channel) new show “Bollywood Hero”.

By-passers were caught off guard, but then immediately immersed into the joyful atmosphere created by the dancers. The dance was choreographed by Longinus Fernandes, who is best known for his Award-winning dance at the end of the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire.

Fernandes is also the choreographer for every dance sequence in the upcoming musical mini-series “Bollywood Hero.” When asked about his work on “Bollywood Hero,” Fernandes said, “I’m sure this will create waves and it will be stunning to the peoples’ eyes, and that’s all to IFC and Chris Kattan because Chris Kattan is an amazing person to work with.”

Even the female lead co-stars of the show were delighted by the performance, “The flash mob was spectacular. It was amazing to see Bollywood dancers in the middle of Times Square. I think we’re kind of creating history here. It was awesome. I had a great time,” said Pooja Kumar.

“I have to say I was super impressed with everything that they’ve done here, and being here at Times Square especially when you’ve come all the way from Bombay,” said Neha Dhupia.

The performance lasted for a couple minutes, and had gathered quite a large crowd of onlookers. Dancers not dressed in the traditional Indian costumes and who appeared to be watching the dancers, joined them in mid-performance, to add to the spontaneity of the piece.

After the performance actor Chris Kattan made a surprise appearance and fans gathered around him. He thanked the performers for their wonderful dance and joined his co-stars for pictures.

“Bollywood Hero” is a three night musical mini-series event premiering on IFC on August 6th, 7th and 8th at 10 p.m.