Don’t we all have fun liking and sharing pictures and videos on social media platforms? Of course yes. Most of the times these are just memes or funny videos but once in a while, we do come across a video that leaves an impact on us because of its strong message.
Recently on Star Plus’ Dance+4 reality show, a group called Feel Crew put up an act on rape. The act, which was performed on a monologue by a famous radio jockey on air, spoke about the grave realities of rape and why it has become necessary to deal with it. The audition tape and the promo garnered tremendous response on the social media owing to its thought-provoking content.
Talking to Punit Pathak and and the Feel Crew which includes Shubham Revenkar, Vishal Jadhav, Vishal Damodhare, Ritesh Kamble, Aniket Tatkare, Akhil Mathaw and Venkatesh Chatuphale, we discovered their reason behind choosing a dance reality show to make people understand some ground realities.
Punit says that reality shows have changed over a period of time in India. “Shows initially were a platform and a ticket to make it big in the industry but now they are more than that — they are a platform where participants not only learn from the best in the industry but also educate other people.”
Since dance is a medium that involves both aural and visual senses, it is more appealing to the audiences and easier for them to understand and learn new things from it, Punit observes. Mediums of communication like TV channels these days are not only about entertainment; they have become responsible mediums trying to make a difference in the lives of the people, he adds.
Revenkar, one of the dance crew members, says that the reason they wanted to perform such an act was because they wanted to make an impact that would open the eyes of the people and make them aware about the grim situation women and girls as young as babies are now facing in the country. “We are good at dancing and we wanted to make a difference not only in dance but also in the lives of people. After researching a lot, brainstorming on how we could actually perform on a monologue, and after two weeks of practice, we finally were able to do justice to it,” he adds.
Even though they have performed on songs earlier, they were able to leave an impact on people with this performance. They originally uploaded the video on their social media handles, says Revenkar, adding that they did not get as many views as they had anticipated, “We wanted the video to reach as many people as possible so that the message is heard loud and clear by a majority of the people. And so we decided that Dance+ 4 would be the best platform to do so.”
“Dancing to a song is way more easy than dancing to dialogues, and since these dialogues have a modulation to them, we need to show aggression through movements and expressions when the voice sounds a bit angry and so on. So overall, it makes it extremely challenging for us to deliver and so we have to practise hard till we perfect the timings and the steps,” Revenkar says.
He further adds that they need to be in sync at all times with even control on their breathing so the performance looks convincing. When asked if they will be performing on more such monologues, Revenkar says, “We are currently thinking on working on the theme of terrorism and the implications of it on people who lose their lives.”