From Naatu Naatu to Black Panther’s funeral: The importance and reinterpretation of dance at this year’s Oscars
Dance scenes are crucial to many of this year's Oscar nominees (photo-DailyO)
Part of Naatu Naatu’s hype at this year’s Hollywood awards season can be owed to Prem Rakshit’s electrifying choreography. It will hopefully lead to Ram Charan and Jr NTR performing on the song at the Dolby Theatre during Monday’s Oscar ceremony.
Unfortunately, while the Academy Awards have had a long history of rewarding musicals with its Best Original Song category, there has been no provisions to reward the choreographers.
While Naatu Naatu serves as a typical song-and-dance number integral to many of the massy entertainers in India, dance somehow played a major role in even non-conventionally musical films at the 2023 Oscar lineup. There was Michelle Williams cheerfully floating in a white dress in Steven Spielberg’s emotionally semi-autobiographical work The Fabelmans, while the opening scenes of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever celebrated Chadwick Boseman and his character T’Challa’s legacy with a goosebump-inducing funeral dance in Wakanda.
Debutant director Charlotte Wells built a similarly haunting choreography routine in Aftersun with her lead actor Paul Mescal (currently the poster child of “depressed guy” roles) carelessly dancing against flashing lights only to hide his inner melancholia. While the Aftersun protagonist danced to spacey rendition of Queen and David Bowie’s classic Under Pressure, Birdman director Alejandro Innaritu played around with Just Dance, another essential David Bowie track.
Innaritu’s self-indulgent critical dud Bardo (which still managed to bag a Best Cinematography nomination) featured its troubled protagonist lost in a crowded party intended to celebrate his career. But something seems to possess him as an acapella version of Just Dance plays and true to the song’s name, Daniel Cacho’s bearded hero closes his eyes and dances with no worry in the world. The cinematography nomination seems understandable with Darius Khondji filming arguably one of the best-shot scenes of last year.
But if there’s any dance scene that comes close to RRR’s energy, it is the 3-hour-long adrenaline-fueled celebration of old Hollywood AKA Damien Chazelle’s Babylon. Set in the backdrop of a rousing, foot-tapping jazz-heavy score by Oscar nominee Justin Hurwitz, Babylon featured some reckless dancing and debauchery at parties set in 1920s and 1930s-era Hollywood.
Time and again, Margot Robbie has proven her dynamic energy and Babylon is no exception as she gloriously dances at rooms filled with intoxicated partygoers, even indulging in a leap of faith as the crowd carries her in full glory. Much like Bardo, Babylon also divided many critics and audiences. Regardless of your views on the La La Land director’s latest venture, you are bound to get infected by a cocaine-heavy energy while witnessing the dance sequences in it.
With all due respect to Golden Globe winner MM Keeravani’s musical contributions, the joyous energy is easily one of the biggest reasons behind Naatu Naatu’s global popularity. And as director SS Rajamouli himself repeatedly states, Prem Rakshit deserves a pat on his back for the viral following that the song has generated. It’s also amusing to note how the entire dance makes for a perfect dance-off against the British colonisers with the Indian heroes tiring out the white guys.
“Not salsa, not flamenco. Have you heard about naatu?” The dialogue preceding the dance itself seems so relevant in the action film’s over-the-top battle against the British.
Highlitiging Rakshit’s contribution to the scene, Rajamouli penned a heartfelt note a few weeks ago where he added,
But while Rakshit’s choreography is intricate and makes best-ever use of men’s suspenders, it is worth noting how even the unchoreographed highlights of the Oscar nominees carry so much depth.
(Spoiler alert: Ignore the next three paragraphs if you wish to watch Aftersun)
In Aftersun, Paul Mescal dances like a normal person, just swaying his arms and legs all over the place. But in a deeply emotional narrative that usually deals with Mescal’s character going through his struggles with depression and bonding with his estranged teenage daughter, the dance scene ultimately serves as a grim reminder of the dancer’s mental state.
As the lights keep on flashing through the dance routine, we see glimpses of the hero’s daughter growing from teenage (Frankie Corio) to adulthood (Celia Rowlson-Hall). The surreal sequence finds the daughter (in both her age groups) trying to reach out to her father, trying to grab him but what happens to the father?
It is highly likely that the father died given his self-harm ideation that is hinted throughout the film. The fact that the song playing in the background finds Bowie singing “This is our last dance” only confirms this melancholic theory further.
Another failed relationship is perfectly exemplified through a crucial scene in The Fabelmans. Largely based on Spielberg’s own personal journey with early filmmaking in his teenage years and his parents’ failed marriage, the coming-of-age drama features Oscar-nominee Michelle Williams as the young hero Sammy’s artistically-gifted yet mentally-troubled mother.
On one camping trip, Williams’ Mitzki dances out a smooth routine in the woods at night, a scene that her aspiring filmmaker son ardently captures on film. While Sammy loves his mother’s free-flowing choreography, his sister seems concerned that she’s dancing in a faint, almost see-through dress. Matters only get complicated further as their family friend Bennie (Seth Rogen) is staring at Mitzki. The subsequent reveal that Mitzki is having an affair with Bennie only makes the dance more integral to the overall premise of a family breaking down.
As mentioned earlier, even the Black Panther sequel featured a visually striking dance to honour its fallen hero. Perfectly blending Chadwick Boseman’s real-life tragedy with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s lore, Ryan Coogler’s moving superhero epic added some-much needed emotion in an era of “Marvel fatigue”.
Playing around the theme that T’Challa might be gone but his soul remains alive in the hearts of his admirers, the dance is not a mourning ritual but rather a celebration of the fallen hero’s legacy. This perfectly falls in line with many traditions in African countries and even some Indian communities that engage in song-and-dance on a person’s death.
Remember the 2020 meme that featured a group of dancing pallbearers? Well, they were actual funeral dancers from Ghana, a country that usually engages in such funeral merry-making. So, in the end, dance does serve as a major recurring theme in all of the aforementioned Oscar nominees, a joyous break from the usual drama of life…
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