Bollywood in Portugal: watching and dancing practices in the construction of alternative cultural identities

Abstract

The impact of Bollywood cinema among Portuguese viewers is an unknown reality in the surrounding society. Usually associated to the communities of Indian origin, the consumption of this kind of cinema also occurs among people from various sectors of the Portuguese population that although not related to each other, have in common the habit of watching Indian films in private, away from the suspicious and stereotyped looks from their relatives and friends. In the meantime, Bollywood dance, the performance inspired by the Hindi cinema choreographies, is growing. The increase of its practitioners reveals an interest in cultural references associated with India and its popular culture, functioning Bollywood dance as an alternative dance practice, generating wellbeing. This paper focuses on the anthropological analysis of both popular Indian cinema audiences and the increasing practice of Bollywood dance in Portugal, exploring the processes of demand for wellbeing based on cultural references from Indian popular culture. Although with different features, these two ethnographic examples represent creative and alternative cultural processes, through which new identities arise, framed in old orientalist ideas.