Aatavu Chanda (Dancing Is Beautiful). Vijaya Anand. 1992. Luaka Bop.

 The Indian film composer Vijaya Anand takes all the giddy highs of new wave—the synthesized blips and dancefloor tempos, the dispassionately sung vocals—and in one 45 rpm single casually dismantles its signature cool detachment with the bravura, life affirming titular declaration. New wave sprung, fully formed, from the wildly experimental, polylingual hotbed of post-punk; it’s post-punk in mass marketable form. And, though dancing was sometimes considered as little more than a theory of post-punk, in new wave it was praxis. New wave dancing was a tribal practice; an assertion of, and a claim to, identity. With Dancing Is Beautiful, Anand pays tribute to its essential role in new wave’s brief history, but also manages to place it in a broader, humanist context. Dancing, Anand says, is beauty itself. From the 1992 Luaka Bop compilation Asia Classics Vol. 1: The South Indian Film Music of Vijaya Anand: Dance Raja Dance.

April 13 021

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