© Douglas Robertson 'Strictly Dandia' reviews recent Tamasha Theatre reviews more Suzanne McCarthy reviews

As with the company's other projects, the setting is an Asian background – this time the Gujarati community. Strictly Dandia is not a musical, but rather a play acted out against a dance backdrop - an amateur dance contest centred on the dandia, a dance performed at the time of the Hindu religious festival of Naviatri. This festival marks the nine nights before Diwali, which celebrates the defeat of Ravan, enemy of Ram and Sita. In form, dandias are repetitive circle dances executed with sticks, (think Morris dancing with an Asian beat). The dancing serves as an opportunity for the participants and their parents to size up potential brides and bridegrooms. A perfect setting for a play.

As with their previous productions, creating Strictly Dandia was very much artist-led.. Once the company has an idea for a production the actors do detailed research within the relevant communities, bringing the real life material they collect back to the rehearsal studio. The idea for Strictly Dandia came unexpectedly. Hearing about the rivalry during the Navratri period between the Australian Gujarati communities of Sydney and Woolagong, the original intention was to set the work “down under”. But the prohibitive cost of doing so meant they had to set it in Britain. The company's research took them up and down the North Circular Road, into the many large community halls that populate that bleak London artery. By day these naked sports halls usually host nothing more exciting than junior school basketball games, but at night during the festival they are transformed into exotic venues attracting posturing men eager to display their virility and girls shivering in outfits only really intended for hot and sunny climates.

The Gujaratis are strictly divided into three main castes, Lohanna, Patel and Shah, and the company noted how strongly the community is caste obsessed. This theme, and especially the impact an outsider can have in such a situation, is a major thread of the work. In order to realise the dramatic possibility, an inter-caste Dandia dance contest is the play's setting, something that would never happen in reality. The artistic directors found themselves with the difficulty of making what they admit is a rather boring dance the centre piece of the action and sufficiently choreographically interesting. The solution was to keep the basic stick motif, but to develop it by interweaving it with other modern dance forms – disco, salsa and hip hop.

The concept behind Strictly Dandia is admirable. But the Tamasha Theatre Company explicitly does not want to be seen merely as presenters of British Asian Theatre, but instead to be compared on equal terms with non-Asian theatre productions. On that basis both for dance and dramatic reasons Strictly Dandia is not entirely successful. The company's artistic directors were intent on getting the balance right between text and dance. But if a play uses dance as its framework, then the movement has to be sufficiently innovative in style and in execution. Otherwise the device is too incidental to add either power or interest to the show. Saturday Night Fever, which also has an amateur dance contest as its core, is a good example of where dance and the tensions surrounding it added to the storyline.

The directors of Strictly Dandia seem to have concluded that setting their work around an amateur dance contest meant that they had an excuse to present routinely manufactured choreography unexcitingly danced. Having said that, there are two moments in the show when the dancing does come alive. The first is at the very beginning when an old woman moved by the music begins to dance a simple step accompanying the rhythms with handclaps. As others join her, the dance picks up speed and interest with slight nuances added to the steps. The second is a pas de deux between the two main love interests who dance their way up and down a series of steps, not unlike Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain.

While the dancing may not be inspiring, one of the show's strengths is the simplicity and versatility of the set, being an adaptation of the bleachers seen in the various sports halls the company visited. During the festival these are packed with people vividly dressed moving their bodies compulsively to the music. This device prevented the dancing from being cramped.

Kristine Landon-Smith and Sudha Bhuchar in 'Strictly Dandia'
Photograph by Douglas Robertson ©

The play concentrates on several issues of unresolved desire – the Romeo and Juliet theme of Hindu girl and Moslem boy (who just happens to be the best Dandia dancer), the Asian man who does not want to sell newspapers, but to be a choreographer, and the desperation of the competing couples to be crowned the competition winners and declared Diwali King and Queen. There is nothing wrong with using universal and well known themes. What is unfortunate is that the company has not used the play's Asian community setting as an opportunity either to say something new about them or to give them a distinctive cultural twist. Some references are made to Gujarati social conventions, caste prejudices and marital infidelity, but these are not adequately explored. Unfortunately the script is relatively bland, delivering one-dimensional characters lacking in power and distinctiveness.

Strictly Dandia's first night's performance was sold out, with most of the theatre's 1,300 seats occupied by a non-Asian audience. The Tamasha Theatre Company hopes that the production will open in London and eventually become a film. Before that happens it needs to stop being merely an Asian clone of Strictly Ballroom and Saturday Night Fever. Unless there is a reworked script and better dances it will remain “Strictly Dull”.