Who Is Usha Jey? Choreographer Blends Cultural Boundaries In Hybrid Bharatnatyam Video

Usha Jey, a 25-year-old dancer and choreographer based in Paris, shared a video on Instagram earlier this week that combined two very distinct dance form, Bharatanatyam and hip-hop. This video of Hybrid Bharatnatyam has gone viral on the internet. People are praising the 1-minute, 20-second video for masterfully merging cultural divides.

Usha Jey shared the video on her Instagram with a caption, "#HybridBharatham EPISODE 5 | Uproar
#HybridBharatham is my way of switching between Hip-Hop and Bharathanatyam, 2 dances that I love, learn and respect. My aim is to keep the essence of each dance and create something that do justice to who I am." The video has received over three million views, and the choreography was done by Usha Jey herself.

Mithuja and Janusha are two other women that appear in the viral video alongside Jey. Both are Bharatanatyam dancers from Sri Lanka who live in Switzerland. The women have jasmine flowers in their hair and wear chequered bottle-green Kalakshethra saris.

As they dance to American rapper Lil Wayne's 2018 single, Uproar, they switch identities with each step. The three delivered an enthralling performance, and the response to the delightfully brief performance has been overwhelmingly positive on social media.

Who Is Usha Jey?

Usha Jey was born and raised in Paris. Her Jaffna-based Sri Lankan Tamil parents fled the nation in the 1990s to escape the Sinhalese government during the country's 26-year civil war. Jey grew up with identity issues and a desire to learn more about her roots. Her quest to understand her identity persisted while the conflict in her homeland and its tragedies filled her with rage and despair.

Hip-hop, on the other hand, was a natural progression in Paris, which served as a vital training ground for the form. She went to a lesson with her best friend because she didn't want to go by herself. Kanon Ghetto-style, a Paris-based dancer and choreographer, gave her the confidence to pursue a career as a professional dancer, as per reports. 

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She stated in one of her interviews that she is primarily interested in hip-hop, but she certainly adores Kuthu (a Tamil folk dance). She also stated that she began Bharathanatyam when she was 20 years old. She continued by saying, "I am proud of my heritage, and I believe that Tamil culture is a source of strength for me. I'm combining two worlds with my Hybrid Bharatnatyam series. It's similar to how I live my life: balancing western and Tamil culture. I'm presenting my culture to the globe in my own unique way through "Hybrid Bharatnatyam".

She debuted her renowned # HybridBharatnatyam series in December 2019. In a previous video from her hybrid Bharatanatyam series in 2020, she performed to 'One Hundred Thousand Flowers,' a song about the oppression and genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka created by Canadian-Sri Lankan rapper Shan Vincent de Paul on his album Made in Jaffna.

Jey went on to say that she also organises hip-hop events all over the world, with Fusion Concept being their biggest event. Jey does hip-hop choreography for English, French, and Tamil music.