On Wednesday the 17th of November, a group of 7 people with vision loss from around Australia attended a Bollywood Dance Workshop on Zoom. This workshop was the third in the Cultural Dance Series run by Blind Sports & Recreation Victoria, and supported by the National Heart Foundation. This hour long session focused on the various types of Bollywood music, the emotions this music conveys, and of course, some key dance moves. Thanks to Jag, the lead female dance instructor from Ignite Bollywood Dance Company, dance moves were easily learnt due to descriptions like, 'pat the dog', 'sunrise' and 'turn the light bulb'. Everyone got into this high energy dance workshop whilst wearing bright colours, saris and jingly bangles."
Carol: "Brilliant, it was lovely and I found it energetic. I was exhausted afterwards. The instructions were very clear. She did a good job."...and " Never, never had the opportunity to do something like this before and it never entered my mind that it was a good form of exercise."
Els: "This session was about having fun for me and learning some kind of dance routine, it was good for body and mind. It was so good to be able to do it at home instead of spending hours on buses and trains".
Ranita: "During my childhood in Fiji we did not have access to Bollywood Dance. Here in Canberra, we do not have shops that sell traditional Indian clothes and accessories, it is not culturally there. I was excited because I wanted to learn dancing proper and I wanted to give me exercise."
Stephanie: "I now know what Bollywood dancing is, it’s made me eager to try more different things. I enjoyed it socially. It was good that the presenter wanted feedback all the time, so everyone could participate."
