Bollywood's KABHI KHUSHI KABHIE GHAM to be shown at Middlebury's Town Hall Theater, 3/25

It's an amazing mixture of Hollywood musical, soap opera, epic storytelling, fantasy and MTV.It's Bollywood, and it's taken the world by storm. The term is a mixture of Hollywood and Bombay (now Mumbai), the center of India's film industry. It refers to the kind of over-the-top, anything-goes filmmaking from India that now has passionate fans all over the world. One of the greatest Bollywood musicals from 2001, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes Sadness) will receive a specialshowing at Town Hall Theater on Friday, March 25.

As a special attraction, the Hadippa Dancers, local performers who have mastered the art of
Bollywood dance, will be on hand to perform live.

"This really is an international phenomenon," says THT executive director Douglas Anderson.
"These films are stuffed almost to the breaking point with music, dance, melodrama, comedy
and anything else you can think of. It's just a riot of color and movement and emotion."

American filmgoers got a taste of Bollywood in the recent hit film Slumdog Millionaire, which
ended with a huge dance number set in a train station. "That's what Bollywood is all about,"
says Anderson. "Throw in a huge dance number just for the fun of it."

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham tells the story of an upscale Indian family that is devastated when
the son marries a woman of "lower breeding." The story may be conventional, but its treatment
has been called "a sumptuous feast" and "a riot of joyful color and choreography".

The Hadippa Dancers is a group of local women, under the direction Jennifer Bruch, who began
meeting in the Pilates studio at the Marble Works over a year ago to learn the style of Bollywood
dance. Though they initially danced because it was healthy and fun, they've become so good at
it that they've been invited to perform several times at Town Hall Theater. "These women blow
me away," says Anderson. "This is sexy, exciting stuff."

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham will be shown on Friday, March 25, at 7 pm at Middlebury's Town
Hall Theater. Tickets are only $5, and may be purchased at www.townhalltheater.org, 802 382-
9222, at the THT Box Office (Mon-Sat, Noon - 5 pm) or at the door.

To post a comment, you must register and login.