You can experience a night of authentic Indian cuisine and Bollywood dancing while raising funds for cardiac care through the Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) Foundation. “Bollywood Night 2” takes place on Saturday, March 7th at the Parkway Banquet Hall in Peterborough.
The latest in a series of annual charity dinners organized by volunteers from Peterborough’s South Asian community, the event is for anyone who enjoys good food and a good time.
“It’s a great opportunity for our local South Asian community to share their culture, dance and food with the greater community, while raising money for important local causes,” says Dr. Bharat Maini, a staff anesthesiologist at PRHC who is helping organize this year’s event.
The volunteers, who call themselves “The Friends” because they are friends to good causes, have been organizing charity dinners for several decades. The Friends’ Indian Dinner 2015 committee includes Dr. Bharat Maini, Dr. Bharat Chawla, Vip Patel, Dr. Sebastian Pinto, Dr. Rajinder Momi, Pradeep Naik, Rodney Pinto, Nimesh Sharan, Vipin Grover, Brij Bhushan Grover, and Nitin Grover.
The origins of the event began 40 years ago, when Dr. Krishan Mohindra and Reverend Donovan Brown decided to host a dinner for charity. The dinner featured entertainment and Indian food that was entirely prepared by Dr. Mohindra’s wife Asha.
Over the years, the annual dinners have raised money for various charitable causes, including cancer research, earthquake relief, and hospital equipment such as CT/MRI scanners. Dr. Mohindra is now retired and he’s passed the charity dinner baton to the next generation of volunteers (although he’s still involved as an advisor).
The event has become so popular that they’ve moved it to a larger venue and the food is brought in by a caterer.
Last year’s “Bollywood Night” was in support of the Canadian Mental Health Association and sold out all 220 seats at the Parkway Banquet Hall.
“A whole group of us bought tickets last year and we had the best time,” says one of the guests at the 2014 dinner. “The food was amazing and we danced all night. I highly recommend this event!”
This year’s dinner is in support of cardiac care at PRHC. Mercedes-Benz Peterborough has generously come forward again this year as the event’s platinum sponsor.
Other sponsors include Euphoria Wellness Spa, Peterborough Hospital Remedy’s RX Pharmacy, Subway, Pyle Wealth Management, kawarthaNOW, Westmount Pharmacy, GM Financial, MD Financial and Sherbrooke Heights Pharmacy.
The dinner will feature authentic North Indian cuisine, with very flavourful foods that use many traditional spices but aren’t “hot.” Dishes will include tandoori (meat cooked in a tandoor, a special clay oven) but there will also be vegetarian dishes available. The dinner will be catered by an Indian restaurant in Toronto — the same one that has catered The Friends’ dinners for the last decade.
Dinner is followed by a Bollywood dancing demonstration and instruction on how to Bollywood dance.
Essentially extravagant musicals, Bollywood movies are known for their adventurous, comedic, and melodramatic plots interspersed with lots of singing and dancing.
Bollywood dancing refers any style of dance featured in Bollywood movies. Bollywood dancing is now so mainstream that you’ll find it in discos in major cities around the world. Bollywood dance classes are also very popular. Anyone can dance Bollywood and you don’t need to have a partner.
Indian music is different from region to region, and for this event the dancing music will be Bhangra, a genre of music from the Punjab region. Bhangra has an update and infectious contemporary beat, perfect for learning how to Bollywood dance.
Although some guests will be dressed in traditional Indian attire, it’s not a requirement. The organizers suggest that people dress to have fun, like they are going out for a night at a club.
How To Learn Bhangra / Bollywood Dance
If you want an advance taste of Bollywood dance instruction, check out this video.
