Art & Entertainment

Who Wants To Be Shakira?

Govinda-style is passe. There's now method to filmi dancing, and a bit of hip-hop and salsa.

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Who Wants To Be Shakira?
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Pappu Can’t Dance

I’ve dropped into a Bollywood dancing class conducted by Abhishek Zaveri’s Dance and Fitness Academy—or A-Danz—at Moksh, one of South Mumbai’s swankiest gyms. It’s a one-hour session for four- to six-year-olds, and halfway through, the corridor outside is already filling up with children for the next class. A new boy is being cajoled by his mother: "Don’t sulk! Dance! You’ll like it, just try it!" He stands there, shuffling his feet, unconvinced, until the instructor barks, "Dance down!", and scowls at him. Startled, he follows the others and gets into a crouching position on the floor, waiting for the music to begin.

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Used to be, when I was growing up, that there were two sorts of dancing. There was classical dancing, Western or Indian; the practice sessions were punishing, but parents heavily endorsed it. And then there was filmi dancing, where you broke into a pelvic gyration on impulse before your parents dragged you away for a severe dressing-down.A-Danz blurs these distinctions.

It’s all in the packaging. Twenty-four-year-old Zaveri makes filmi ishtyle dancing purposeful by following a curriculum, the way any formal dance programme would, and likes to emphasise that it’s more than just jhatkas and matkas. "Govinda-style is finished," declares the former model. "Now all Hindi film songs promote the latest dance forms, from Caribbean hip-hop to salsa." More than 500 kids have signed up, even though a three-month term at A-Danz costs Rs 3,900-plus. The money also buys your kid a spot on stage at the academy’s annual "Rock Bollywood" concert. And inevitably, there are extras, likecostumes (Rs 1,000) and tickets for parents (Rs 250-Rs 1,000 each).

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Zaveri is big on "teamwork" and "discipline". "This is not a birthday party," he proclaims, and he’s dead right—this is about dancing to the same mind-numbing song for three months, to get onto stage at the end of it. During the eighth rerun of Pappu Can’t Dance, a little girl slips and falls. "Are you proud?" Zaveri berates her as she clambers back onto her feet. "They have lousy form," he chastens his instructor. As the class winds up, the instructor still looks grim. "He is not supposed to connect emotionally with his students," says Zaveri approvingly. "We only want them to follow instructions."

Little Ashweja, 7, has hers down pat: "I want to grow up to be a painter and an architect, but most of all, I want to grow up to be a star."

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