Performing Bollywood Broadway: Shillong Chamber Choir as Bollywood’s Other

Abstract

This article attempts to explore the performativity that surrounds choral music in contemporary India. 1 1 Choral music was discovered in Western civilization and Christianity. As a starting point, it had the Gregorian reforms of the 6th century. Choir primarily refers to a vocal ensemble practising sacred music inside church settings as opposed to chorus which indicates vocal ensembles performing in secular environments. Multiple singers rendered sacred polyphony 1430 onwards. By the end of the century a standardized four-part range of three octaves or more became a feature. The vocal parts were called superius (later, soprano), altus, tenor (from its function of ‘holding’ the cantus-firmus) and bassus (Unger 2010, 2–3). Moving beyond its religious functions, the Shillong Chamber Choir locates itself within various sounds. Hailing from Meghalaya in the north- eastern part of India, the Shillong Chamber Choir has many folksy and original compositions in languages such as Khasi, Nagamese, Assamese and Malayalam. However, what brought them national fame was the Bollywoodisation 2 2 Bollywood refers to the South Asian film industry situated in Mumbai. The term also includes its film music and scores. of the choir. With its win in the reality TV Show, India’s Got Talent 3 3 India’s Got Talent is a reality TV series on Colors television network founded by Sakib Zakir Ahmed, part of Global British Got Talent franchise. in 2010, the Shillong Chamber Choir introduced two things to the Indian sound-scape—reproducing and inhabiting the Bollywood sound within a choral structure, and introducing to the Indian audience a medley of songs that could be termed ‘popular’, but which ultimately acquired a more eclectic framework. Medley is explored as a genre. The purpose of this article is to understand how ‘Bollywood Broadway’ is the mode through which choral renditions and more mainstream forms of entertainment are coming together.