A body of art

For the longest time, dance for body percussionist Bharat Verma was restricted to Bollywood thumkas and hip-hop. But for someone with a passion for dance strong enough to have begin teaching at the age of 13, he was always on a quest of finding ways to hone his craft.

“I was good in studies but my entire focus was on arts. I taught for a fee of Rs 150 a month and around 2002 there weren’t enough opportunities related to dance or any reality show. Bollywood was my source of learning and hip-hop that I use to copy from the videos,” recalls the 32-year-old, who a year later formed a group called ‘Heartbeaters’ comprising slum children.

“I would first teach myself and then go and teach the kids. We used to do Bollywood and hip-hop since that was the raging trend then. We got really famous in Udaipur,” adds Bharat, who hails from the city as well.

It was only around 2008, when Dance India Dance became a dance show to reckon with, that he started getting calls from the royal homes to choreograph their wedding dances. Three years later, through the Big Medicine Charitable Trust, he got introduced to the US-based Vanaver Caravan Company. This life changed forever.

“We had a workshop with them and I taught them Rajasthani folk and Bollywood dance, and they showed us body percussion style. That really moved me, and I realised that this is my style,” says the choreographer, who relentlessly practised body percussion for two years until the company called him to the US in 2014.

“They invited me to teach Bollywood and other Indian dance styles. At the same time I tried to learn body percussion from them, though I had been practicing, but needed their experienced guidance,” he adds. In his many visits to the US since then, Bharat has become a body percussionist teacher.

The art of striking one’s body to emit various sounds and beats, also known as body percussion, is a subset of body music. Bharat has created his own style of the dance form, where he has infused desi beats to it. Body percussion typically incorporates Indonesian and Ethiopian folk traditions that may or may not be performed on music.

“I took the essence of body percussion and put it on Indian rhythms, since mixing Bollywood beats with body percussion is actually very difficult. Western music lacks the lively Indian rhythm and because of my family history of music, I used the knowledge of ragas and rhythm on my body and tried to play it in the form of dance. I can give rhythm with Bollywood music on my body by replacing the drum beats with my body,” says the choreographer, who can create a piece in seven days.

Pretty soon, his hard work and dedication paved the way for his Bollywood debut as a body percussion choreographer: Bharat has taught the dance form to Farhan Akhtar and Deepak Dobriyal for his film Lucknow Central. “I choreographed the Kabootar song with Bosco Martis where I gave the body music,” he beams.

Recently, he also showed off his talents on the stage of The Voice, where his singer cousin Jayant Verma gave the music and he performed body percussion. “After our performance, both the judges A.R. Rehman and Adnan Sami came up on the stage and performed with me. While Rahman sir played the piano, Adnan sir sang and I did body percussion,” he shares.

Now, the body percussionist has opened his studio in Powai and is working towards making people aware of the dance form. “I plan to participate in more reality shows as I think India is not yet familiar with this dance form. So I am focusing on more videos and put it up on the social media,” he says.

In the future, Bharat would love to collaborate with a rapper, as he believes this dance form will do wonders with a rapper.