Neelo, who died recently, was an actress of great potential. She was introduced to films in the early years of the Pakistani film industry and helped it find its feet.

The most distinct feature of her performances was her ability to dance. She was a good dancer at a time when the leading heroines were not really known for this talent. Noor Jehan could barely dance, Sabiha Khanum and Musarrat Nazeer only went through the rounds. No one really had the experience or training of being a dancer on screen.

Dance had a particular role to play in the films produced in the sub-continent. The heroines, too, could be dancers and they did express their love and attraction through dance but it was the vamps and professional seductresses who specialised in the art form. Usually working in the cabarets and dance clubs, these vamps played the role of dancers or used dance to beguile and distract the hero away from the love of his life. Asha Posley, Amy Minwalla and, a little later, Panna were cast in the role of dancers. The dance was to entice. Neelo’s dance, so to say, played a more central role in the film and was used in an affirmative manner where the intention was not to beguile but to express true emotion - it could be anything from hate to annoyance to rebellion.

In India, too, dancers were seen in typecast roles while the leading ladies only made the moves and gestures without being lauded for their great talent and training. In the early days, due to the absence of playback, the leading men and women had to sing while acting and it appeared that their talent as vocalists was more valued. Many appeared on screen only because they could sing well. A similar distinction ruled the world of cine dance.

Madhubala, Meena Kumari and Nargis could hardly cross the bar of approval and barely did the needful as part of the role to charm and be attractive. It was only with Vijantimala that the dancer became the heroine and the form was separated from its traditional associations. Now, the dancer could play positive roles and it was part of her armory to attract and woo the audience.

In the films that were being made then, the form was used as message of what was traditionally associated with it. There was a great deal of type casting and the filmmakers did not really rock the boat and challenge the presumptions. Though film was seen as a great breakaway from the traditional value system and therefore was not placed at the same level as poetry and music, it was meant to go along the values to strengthen those rather than look beyond their enervating stranglehold. The men hardly ever danced and the women were seductresses, fallen creatures taking men away from the path of rightful emotional responses. Gradually, with the passage of time and with greater loosening of the meanings associated with the forms, the directors started playing around and get beneath or on the other side of the conventional framework. Only later were these associations turned on their head and seen as gestures of affirmative action or open defiance.

Neelo’s greatest act came when she was forced to perform for a foreign dignitary. She had the courage to say no and then had to face severe consequences. In the days when the media was firmly controlled, it was only the rumour mill that leaked news and one had to sift chaff from the grain in an atmosphere of extremely oppressive silence.

In a film made later on the Palestinian struggle, she put a similar dance to great artistic virtue. This dance was seen as an act of ultimate defiance, even rebellion. The symbol was thus dissociated from its traditional meaning of seduction and lure and made into one of great defiance. It was an about turn accepted by the audiences as Zarqa, the film in which this was employed, became a super hit. One of the most popular and highest-grossing films, it subverted the meaning of dance and Neelo’s role and talent as a dancer had a huge role to play in it. Had she been a mediocre dancer, the act of defiance would have only been a slogan but her talent made the act of defiance a lived experience and one of the greatest moments of dance in the history of Pakistani films.

Her husband Riaz Shahid was one of the more sensitive film directors of the industry and she flowered under his directorship. Unfortunately, she soon lost him to cancer. From then on it was a long and lonely struggle, but she was able to groom her son Shaan to become one of the leading heroes of the Pakistani films.

The writer is a culture critic based in Lahore