How do you write mashups of Bollywood and Disco songs for an orchestra to play? How long does it take to create one minute of choreography? Hard cheese or soft cheese? monstrARTity’s Executive Director and Associate Artistic Director sit down with Ria and Jennalee of dance group Giggle Queens to tackle all the critical questions about building a music & dance production from scratch.
If you’re a session musician interested in performing in future original productions like this one, visit BollywoodMonsterMashup.com#Orchestra to apply!How do you write mashups of Bollywood and Disco songs for an orchestra to play? How long does it take to create one minute of choreography? Hard cheese or soft cheese? monstrARTity’s Executive Director and Associate Artistic Director sit down with Ria and Jennalee of dance group Giggle Queens to tackle all the critical questions abÂ
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0:00
today on bali with monster live two
0:02
finds for the two giggles we love this
0:05
ghost we’re pumped jimmy jimmy jimmy
0:06
jimmy jimmy jim
0:09
you pick how many jimmies you lots of
0:10
jimmy baldy with disco music is like the
0:13
best ball you would music wow nice might
0:16
be a strong statement
0:17
controversial
0:19
we love the cheese yeah i love cheese
0:22
hard cheese or soft cheese
0:24
hard cheese all the way
0:26
okay girl get out of here relationship
0:28
over
0:29
we’re done
0:31
hello i’m vicasa kohli the executive
0:33
director of monstert and today we are
0:35
going to get behind the scenes with the
0:36
bollywood monster orchestra and all the
0:38
creative minds that go behind it we are
0:40
going to be talking with jenna lee and
0:43
ria from the giggle queens and uh for
0:46
those who don’t know what bollywood
0:47
monster orchestra is it is a live mashup
0:50
of musicians performing western songs
0:53
and bollywood songs together have you
0:55
ever been to a party i don’t know if
0:57
anyone’s ever been to a party before
0:58
they have these things called djs and
0:59
they make songs up so we’re doing that
1:01
except all live and then we throw
1:02
dancers on top of it
1:04
not too hard though because we don’t
1:06
want jenna lee andrea to get angry with
1:07
us but
1:08
uh so
1:09
moving right in to meeting the fine fine
1:13
giggle queens
1:15
two finds for the two giggles um
1:19
so first what songs are you doing car
1:23
choreography to this time
1:26
wow well
1:28
where to start i mean
1:29
we knew that going into it before you
1:32
sent us the list that it was
1:34
disco and we loved discuss we’re pumped
1:37
and then we’ve ended up choosing
1:40
hot hot stuff hot stuff with macabre
1:43
yeah
1:44
jimmy jimmy jimmy jimmy jimmy jimmy
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jimmy
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you pick how many jimmies you lots of
1:49
jimmy
1:50
and then it’s time we’re ending off with
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yeah it’s time to disco slash it’s time
1:54
to ymca yes because we love the cheese
1:56
yeah all about the cheese hard cheese or
1:59
soft cheese
2:01
what hard cheese all the way
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okay girl get out of here relationship
2:05
over
2:06
we’re
2:07
so uh okay the songs that you guys
2:09
picked then
2:11
what
2:12
talk a little bit about what why those
2:14
songs like when you heard those was it
2:15
the mash-up between the east and west
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was it the particular eastern song was
2:19
it the particular western song what was
2:21
the thing that pulled you towards those
2:23
particular ones great question great
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question um yeah i think for both of us
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it was a mix of you know generally and i
2:32
as you know maybe you don’t know though
2:34
um you know we have trained in whacking
2:37
which is a disco style but uh i’ve also
2:40
trained in bollywood and indian dance
2:42
styles so there’s a lot to play with in
2:45
these songs like there are disco and
2:47
whacking songs that really stuck out to
2:49
jen and there’s bollywood songs in there
2:50
that i was like we have to do this song
2:52
so it was really kind of both our ears
2:55
coming together and figuring out what
2:57
mashup worked for both of our styles and
2:59
you know the musicality that we want to
3:01
play with which is pretty exciting
3:03
because you know we’ve been doing fusion
3:05
for like the whole time that giggle
3:07
queens has been around and this is kind
3:09
of the ultimate performance for us
3:12
especially because it’s disco and
3:13
bollywood which are the two main styles
3:16
that we do so yeah
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live
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and live live live music the dream
3:22
that yeah so
3:24
now
3:24
for okay so you it sounds like we’re
3:27
just all enjoying throwbacks to our
3:28
youth here when we hear these songs
3:30
bring some good memories all that stuff
3:32
so when you went to start doing the
3:34
choreography um
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what is it that you’re thinking about so
3:39
i’ll ask well let’s go generally first
3:42
okay choreography well we we kind of
3:45
decided as we were choosing the songs
3:47
that we really wanted to like embrace
3:50
and love the 70s element and whacking
3:53
makes an appearance on the tv show soul
3:55
train which we kind of talked about so
3:57
we really wanted to
3:59
draw inspiration from not only the
4:02
movement of soul train but the context
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so the way people are dancing socially
4:07
and we’re coming in to our creative
4:09
process with these ideas
4:11
the soul train line everybody
4:13
freestyling but then coming together
4:16
yeah in terms of like our creative
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process i think it’s very
4:20
organic we don’t we like to have a big
4:24
plan but not a little plan of detail so
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we like to just kind of try things
4:31
let them land try some other moves and
4:33
let them marinate and then edit
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later on so that’s where we’re at right
4:38
now so was that a
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very explicit hint or subtle hint that
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we’ll see like a soul train style you
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know
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dance off on stage it was an explicit
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thing
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it’s going down it’s happening some of
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our other dancers are extremely strong
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freestylers and we really want to not
4:57
only bring the choreography but bring
4:58
the freestyle element which we’re pumped
5:00
about music is always
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you know the number one
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inspiration for dancers
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um i mean i can’t speak for all dancers
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but at least for us so
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yeah even like before an idea comes the
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music is really what is going to you
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know um anchor everything anchor all the
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ideas that come so
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you know if we might listen to the song
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and be like oh you know this sounds very
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like dramatic or this is a really good
5:27
place for a battle or something like
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that so that’s like the big idea but
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then
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we’re gonna move and maybe we’ll
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freestyle a little bit so we’ll play the
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music we’ll make like
5:37
in a corner by ourselves a little bit
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and then we’ll come together and be like
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okay what about this we might put it
5:42
together pick and choose from moments we
5:45
liked in our freestyle and then through
5:47
that movement we might be like oh you
5:49
know this is a really good
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uh point for like a soloist to kind of
5:53
come in and take over or like the story
5:55
kind of comes through but the movement
5:57
and music is always first and then
5:59
everything comes after
6:00
what is is what does the timeline look
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like
6:03
of what you need to do uh you know how
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many
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meetings do you have that you’re just
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like thinking about it versus when you
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actually start getting the moves
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happening to then when you start
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rehearsing with other people what’s the
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timeline typically like it depends on
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like the complexity of what we’re doing
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you know how many dancers do we have
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what’s the level of the choreography if
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we’re doing something super intricate
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super advanced it’s going to be a little
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bit longer you know if
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like i usually say if you’re learning a
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minute of choreo you need an hour of
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rehearsal to learn it that’s not to
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choreograph it so you know jed and i are
6:38
gonna have meetings that are just
6:40
creative strictly creative you know like
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kind of blocking out
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um logistics like how many dancers
6:46
what’s the rehearsals what’s the
6:47
rehearsal space what are the costumes
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that’s all like admin stuff and then we
6:50
have the creative piece so what are the
6:52
songs like what songs going first uh
6:55
who’s in what piece like what’s the
6:57
vision for each of those then we have to
6:59
meet to actually choreograph it and you
7:01
might hit those mental blocks and when
7:03
you have a timeline it can be a little
7:04
bit hard but
7:06
within that time crunch there might be
7:08
some cool stuff that comes out of it
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because you just gotta roll with it you
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don’t have time to be like now let’s go
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over that there’s no time really so then
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after we do all of that that we have to
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meet with our dancers and actually teach
7:19
it to them and you know that’s when the
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time crunch is really on because
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you know
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we only have a couple hours with our
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dancers we want to pay them fairly also
7:28
so we don’t want to have 10 hour
7:29
rehearsals that’s not fair to everyone
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so we have to plan it meticulously so
7:33
that we come in and that we’re not
7:35
wasting anybody’s time so what we’re
7:37
we’ve decided to do this year is to have
7:39
a zoom meeting with everybody before we
7:41
enter rehearsal so we can explain you
7:43
know what’s the vision what’s going on
7:46
before we meet so we can just get to
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dancing right away when we see everybody
7:49
ev
7:50
how are you doing
7:52
i’m good how are you doing so maybe this
7:54
is a good time since we’re talking about
7:55
the music and the inspiration it has for
7:57
the dancers what is your role in the
7:59
bollywood monster orchestra project oh
8:01
you know i just get coughing for people
8:04
of course that’s important you can’t run
8:06
rehearsal without coffee no like don’t
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even try um
8:09
no but um i mean i’m pretty much kind of
8:12
managing things on the music side
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um getting the musicians
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sending them the tracks to learn picking
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the tracks writing down the music on
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paper for them to learn wow and then
8:22
making sure they all show up in the same
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room on the same day and they actually
8:25
learn the music
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and that their schedule for the day that
8:29
they know
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when is the show when do i show up for
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the show what do i wear to the show all
8:34
that jazz what is
8:35
what is the first step in making of
8:38
from your perspective
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for um well first step is picking
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the theme
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um because um i think as you mentioned
8:46
in the beginning we have a different
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theme every year it’s always bollywood
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plus something
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um so mean of a class will always pick
8:52
like okay what are we doing this year um
8:54
and i was super excited this year’s
8:55
disco because i also love the school
8:57
music
8:58
this is just a room of disco lovers
8:59
which is amazing
9:00
and i also think baldy with disco music
9:02
is like the best bollywood music wow
9:05
nice might be a strong statement
9:07
controversial yes
9:09
give us feedback we want to hear from
9:10
you
9:11
so yeah picking the theme and after that
9:13
it’s picking the songs on both sides
9:16
like picking the bollywood songs and
9:18
picking the disco songs or whatever
9:20
english songs they are and picking what
9:22
fits together yeah that’s a hard job
9:24
yeah i want to know
9:26
about that like how it’s an interesting
9:28
yeah
9:29
i think it’s a very
9:30
for me
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honestly it’s a very random process yeah
9:34
how i do it like i’ll just listen to a
9:37
whole bunch of songs
9:39
like sometimes i’ll have songs in mind
9:40
like especially because they’re super
9:41
disciplined like i know disco songs so i
9:43
kind of have a list like can i match
9:45
this with anything
9:46
but because
9:47
now not so much but especially a few
9:49
years ago starting this project i didn’t
9:51
know bali would that well so it would
9:53
always just be like okay i’m going to
9:54
listen to this playlist of top 50
9:56
bollywood songs and see which ones i
9:57
like and then whatever i like i’ll be
9:59
like okay can i fit this with something
10:00
else and how i determine if i can fit
10:02
two things
10:03
pretty much just um first of all are
10:05
they like
10:06
basically do they sound similar at all
10:09
like sometimes it’s just like they’re
10:10
about the same speed and they’re in the
10:11
same key and it’s like okay i can match
10:13
that sometimes um you know they’re not
10:16
exactly the same speed not exactly the
10:18
same key but it’s like oh that baseline
10:20
it’s actually almost the same which is
10:22
weird because it’s like this bollywood
10:24
song from the 80s and this song that
10:26
came out in 2010 like they definitely
10:28
had
10:29
no they didn’t talk to each other but
10:31
somehow that bass line is the exact same
10:33
almost um so just finding the little
10:35
things in the music that
10:37
are similar and then yeah then i just
10:39
layer them yeah or even if it’s like a
10:40
chord progression or just like anything
10:42
like that
10:44
um and then just yeah and that is just
10:46
the fun part of just figuring out how to
10:48
fit together sometimes like you really
10:49
want to make something work and it’s
10:51
just not when you put it when you try
10:52
it’s just really not working
10:54
yes
10:55
we’ve tried that with some songs yes
10:57
we’ve tried our own mashups and right
10:59
you can’t force you can’t push
11:00
everything this is cool this is what
11:02
this is about see dancers and musicians
11:04
learning about what it takes and
11:06
hopefully everyone else listening and
11:07
learning about both of the things but uh
11:10
equal awe happening here it’s a lot of
11:12
work on both sides definitely that is
11:14
the moral of the story and we’re super
11:16
grateful because often people have no
11:18
clue i don’t know if you get this how
11:20
much work it takes to dance they’re like
11:22
well do do a dance yes right now even
11:25
the musicians i would say don’t know how
11:27
much work it is to create the music that
11:29
they’re preparing right because we’ve
11:31
had i know we’ve had stories in the past
11:33
like like i know i’ve gotten
11:35
i know what stories are
11:37
i have a lot of stories like musicians
11:39
have said to me like after i sign them
11:41
on for the show like oh can we do this
11:42
song and i was like maybe we can do that
11:44
song next year um but i wrote this sheet
11:46
music eight months ago so oh my god yes
11:50
we’re living in a long-term plan it’s a
11:51
long-term plan here yes and i know
11:54
i don’t think not in my time but i know
11:55
people have asked you before to change
11:56
the key during the rehearsal
12:00
absolutely well now i know that that is
12:02
not easy i can’t believe that it’s only
12:05
this year that we’re working with you on
12:06
this project because i think you’re like
12:08
the perfect group to fit in with this
12:10
project because you also do really cool
12:12
and outside the box things thank you for
12:14
saying that but i want to know then is
12:18
uh what
12:19
excites you the most of what you’re
12:21
going to do this year jen ali oh my gosh
12:25
it i mean yeah everything we talked
12:27
about it feels like it’s all
12:30
every bmm that we’ve done this is our
12:33
sixth one
12:35
and now we get to do it with live
12:36
musicians like it’s all been leading to
12:37
this moment
12:38
whacking for me this is more generally
12:41
answer but is my passion and it’s a
12:44
disco style like i’m paying homage to
12:47
like the root of the dance not just the
12:49
music like the way it was done on soul
12:51
train and to just feel it’s just feeling
12:53
so good so what am i most excited for
12:56
just like living in that live music
12:59
disco fever
13:01
everything’s coming together moment
13:04
with my best friend
13:07
yeah i think like
13:09
there’s a couple
13:10
of things like
13:12
yeah it’s all coming together first of
13:14
all in terms of like
13:16
bollywood monster mashup who like is all
13:20
about the mashups and then giggle
13:21
queen’s also all about the mashups but
13:23
then the fact that it’s disco in
13:26
bollywood which are like our two
13:27
favorite things it’s like ding ding ding
13:29
number two
13:30
and then ding ding ding three we’ve
13:32
always wanted to do like whether it was
13:35
bmm or not like a show with a live band
13:38
like that is i think for a lot of
13:40
dancers the dream like the energy that
13:42
you’re feeding off with dancers but then
13:44
musicians that is just so special like
13:48
for musicians and for dancers you know i
13:50
think that bond is really really
13:52
important and impactful so i think
13:54
number three ding ding ding and then
13:56
number four
13:58
is just like because it’s been like two
14:00
and a half years of not a lot of
14:02
performances i am kind of like scared
14:06
about the energy and the adrenaline
14:08
that’s gonna happen you know because
14:11
we’ve been
14:12
so what’s the word like suppressed in
14:14
for the last two and a half years of
14:15
that kind of energy that performance
14:17
energy um so i’m i’m excited ding ding
14:21
ding ding ding ding all the way
14:23
yeah yeah
14:24
i feel on that i was like you can ring
14:26
my bell
14:28
now almost made it on the list i love
14:31
that my favorite part of that song is at
14:32
the beginning
14:36
like 20 times
14:39
from your perspective what are you most
14:41
excited about this year oh okay i have
14:43
two two things one i think as we were
14:45
all talking like the disco and the
14:47
bollywood i’m also excited for that
14:49
combination those are also two genres
14:51
that i love
14:52
um and then also i guess from the music
14:55
side i’m very excited about i’m very
14:57
excited about specific songs
15:00
um like one of the ones that you two are
15:01
dancing to the hot mukabola yeah um that
15:04
it was like just a complete
15:07
complete chance that that came to be a
15:10
thing
15:10
because um it was on that because
15:12
because i just looked at like the
15:14
tentative list and he was like i feel
15:15
like we need like another like really
15:17
popular bollywood song in there like
15:18
something that people will get one of my
15:20
favorite songs so i was like i was
15:22
looking up really popular bollywood
15:25
very clear direction yes yes um so then
15:28
one of the like probably like the second
15:30
one that i came up was the mukabala song
15:32
which i hadn’t heard before
15:34
and then as soon as i started listening
15:36
to it i was like
15:38
that should go with hot stuff i didn’t
15:40
even have like a reason why i was just
15:41
like that that makes me think of the hot
15:43
stuff songs that i we tried putting
15:45
together and like it worked so much
15:47
better than i even thought it would even
15:49
in that random moment so i’m very
15:50
excited to hear that one live and then
15:52
also um similar to how you said you’re
15:54
excited about working with a live band
15:56
which is great to hear um i’m excited to
15:58
have dancers perform live with us
16:00
because we’ve been wanting to do that
16:01
for years then it was two years of
16:03
pandemic and we like literally couldn’t
16:04
have that many people in the room even
16:06
though we still went forward with the
16:07
project we had to record the band and
16:09
then record the musicians sorry record
16:11
the dancers separately right so it was
16:13
two people i remember so this is like
16:14
the third year of us trying to combine
16:16
music and dance on this project and it’s
16:19
finally actually happening live
16:22
it’s finally coming together that’s
16:24
awesome yeah you know i feel like we got
16:26
like this mutual understanding about the
16:28
work that you do
16:30
and you got some understanding of the
16:32
work that happens on the musician’s side
16:34
and
16:35
i thought it was really cool that
16:37
basically everything that you’re doing
16:38
has the same parallel
16:40
on the music side yeah and then we all
16:42
just come together and ding ding ding
16:44
away
16:47
for the audience i feel like that’s like
16:50
some sort of like uh pootie tanks
16:51
there’s slaying going on like ding ding
16:53
ding all night long or whatever i don’t
16:55
know
16:57
if
16:58
if a pooty tang reference makes it into
17:00
this final cut of the video
17:08
so okay so we got the giggle queens
17:11
we got ev
17:13
on behalf of the bollywood monster
17:14
orchestra music superstar and uh i’m
17:17
going to just do a pre-emptive shout out
17:19
to of course uh antonia who’s also
17:22
helping out with the charts this year
17:23
and then um
17:25
we’re going to look forward so looking
17:27
forward to that first rehearsal with all
17:28
the amazing musicians and then finally
17:31
putting it all together with the dancers
17:33
this is gonna be so fun i think i’m most
17:34
excited after i heard your response
17:36
about how you’re most excited that got
17:38
me excited
17:40
okay good that’s it we’re all just gonna
17:42
be really excited yeah
17:45
anyone else there is excited about doing
17:47
this type of thing then you know
17:49
let us know contact us be part of the
17:51
bollywood monster orchestra fun it’s all
17:53
where it’s at okay
17:55
that’s all where it’s at ding ding ding
17:58
ding
18:02
[Music]
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