Choreographer, dancer and movement director Usha Jey is currently in Birmingham, UK at the ongoing 2022 Commonwealth Games, performing the popular Kuthu dance of Tamil Nadu as well as her now signature choreography #HybridBharatham. If Jey’s name doesn’t ring a bell, her performances certainly will. It’s impossible to have missed her already viral Instagram video dancing with Lil Wayne Noise dressed in a bottle green Kalakshetra saree – fusing hip-hop and Bharatanatyam in her unique rendition – which had close to 5 million views at the time of writing this feature. Such is its popularity that she is now performing an extended version of this choreography at the 10-day sporting event for the world to see.
When I caught up with Jey through my Zoom window a few weeks ago, she had just returned to her native Paris after a whirlwind European tour with British rapper MIA, and was getting ready to head to the UK. My first question was to decipher her inimitable #HybridBharatham choreography that made her the internet’s beloved dance queen. How did the idea of merging classical Indian dance with street style dance come about? “I came up with choreography in 2019 as an experiment for myself,” reveals Jey, who has also worked with fashion brands such as Off-White, Rami Kadi and Ashi Studio on movement direction and show choreography. “People say that I mix the two dances, but I don’t. Bharatanatyam adavus each has a distinct mood. I’m not mixing this with hip-hop moves. I consciously move from one dance to another, honoring each in its entirety,” she explains.
As a first-generation French-Tamilian, the dancer grew up in two cultures, and the choreography is simply a collision of her worlds, which she wholeheartedly identifies with. Jey started learning hip-hop dancing more than a decade ago to keep a friend company. She didn’t expect to find her habit in the process. The opportunity to study Bharatanatyam in the French capital, however, took some hunting. “I always wanted to learn it, but I couldn’t find the right place in Paris. Bharatnatyam is seen as this dance form that you have to learn at a young age, but I only started it at 20. I was doing it for myself and I had nothing to prove. So I didn’t mind being the only adult in a room full of kids!”
Tamil music and movies, says Jey, have always been part of her family’s daily routine at home. She even spent a decade learning her native language. She saw dance as another way to stay connected to her Tamilian roots. Did she approach the sartorial aspect of this process with the same reverence? “I grew up imbibing values from Tamilian culture. So I don’t see saree as just a dress. It is a relic of my origin, a thread that connects me to my land”, says the choreographer. “Often, when people talk about the sari, they refer to it as a representation of femininity. I don’t look at it the same way, because a woman can be represented in many other ways. More than an eloquent affinity, the sari allows me to represent my culture wherever I go, like when I wore it on French national television. It allows me to say where I’m from without trying to sound like someone else.”
