Beyond Bollywood comes to Brussels after 60-show West End run

What happens when a Belgium-based Algerian manufacturer meets an Indian Bollywood choreographer? The result is an infectious high-energy live stage celebration of Indian dancing: Beyond Bollywood is in Brussels this week.

With close to 30 dancers and 700 costumes the show is a kaleidoscope of colours, musics, emotions and various Indian dancing styles including Rajahstani, Gujarati and Punjabi as well as a fusion with Western pop dancing. After 60 performances at the London Palladium, Beyond Bollywood is now undertaking a four-continent tour including performances in Brussels and Antwerp.

High energy is a paltry description for the extremely engaging, muscular and energetic dance numbers that overflow from the stage to the auditorium and back.

The story is a familiar one for Bollywood fans: expat Indian returns to India to find her roots and honour her mother and in doing so finds true love, all of this accomplished with intergenerational family relationships, the neutralisation of a villain, steadfastness in the hero's principles, broad swathes of comedy, true friendship and lots of dancing.

In fact, in what may seem to be completely contradictory, there is a strong Shakespearian feeling and structure to many Bollywood productions. This is not surprising according to Sudeep Modak who plays the role of Ballu, the comedic but resourceful sidekick to the hero.

"A lot of Indian stories are inspired by Shakespeare, a lot of the foundation of Indian theatre was established from Shakespeare's tales, they started adapting Shakespeare in different languages in India so there's a huge influence of Shakespeare in plays in India," he says.

"The stock characters like the comedian, the hero, the villain, the hero's love interest, all of this comes somewhere from Shakespeare, but, we add colours and Indian sentiments, we are very emotional people so the base instead of being intellectual is emotional."

So our eyes and ears are amazed by the rich, elaborate spectacle but also our heart strings are pulled by the overriding emotions so that we may get teary with the story but we also cannot help displaying broad smiles during the dance numbers.

The music was composed by Bollywood veterans Salim and Sulaiman Merchant. "The music for Beyond Bollywood was very difficult to compose but at the same time it was very exciting," says Salim.

"It needed a perfect blend of Indian classical music along with folk rhythms of India. The music had to be emotional, it had to be energetic and very very dramatic."

Carla Biset-Bentchikou, a Belgium-based Algerian, joined her mother four years ago in producing the show, and also plays one of the leading roles: "It's a crazy adventure. If two years ago you had told me that I would have been on stage with about 30 Indians I would not have believed you - it's completely an adventure - it has changed me, I've been adopted by India and I feel half Indian now."

Beyond Bollywood, Brussels Cirque Royal, 15-17 September
Antwerp Stadsschouwburg, 28-29 September