Bollywood dance as political participation? On flash mobs,new media,and political potential

Abstract

On November 27, 2011, a flash mob took place in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) train station in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, as a group of mostly young people performed a dance set to a Bollywood song. Soon, videos of the event appeared online sparking lively debates and media coverage. Here, I engage the ‘CST flash mob’ and its use of Bollywood dance to grapple with the democratic potential that lies at the intersection of live performance, popular culture, and new media. Situating the flash mob within Bollywood dance scholarship, I explore the global proliferation and online circulation of Bollywood flash mobs as fandom in performance. I am particularly interested in the implicit political dimensions of these performances and how these play out in local and new media contexts.

Keywords

Bollywood dance flash mobs participatory culture performance politics

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