The younger lot of actors today are more prepared about everything, including dance, feels actress Madhuri Dixit who says that in her times it was a tough battle for them.
“I was trained in a different dance form…I was trained in Kathak. It’s great when you are coming into the industry you should be equipped with everything and we weren’t,” Madhuri said in an interview here.
The 48-year-old ‘dancing diva’ recalls the tough time she had while learning the dance moves for one of her most popular and memorable song “Humko Aaj Kal Hai…”.
“There were lots of things, as you are learning every day. I remember I was doing this song ‘Humko Aaj Kal Hai…’, and in the initial beats I had to go down…Lying on the floor,” she said.
“It was typical Bollywood and I did not know how to do it. And once when I was rehearsing for it, I banged my head so hard on the floor that there was a big boil,” she said.
Madhuri, who is known for her dancing skills, is amazed at the way actresses like Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt, Shraddha Kapoor dance.
“A lot of girls are good at dancing like Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Sonakshi Sinha. I was surprised to see Alia Bhatt dancing on one of the shows, Shraddha Kapoor did a good job in ‘ABCD 2’,” Madhuri said.
“We learnt as we went by, so it was a tough battle. Earlier accessibility was not there, but today there is. Also we have ‘Dance Studio’, ‘Dance with Madhuri’ (an online dance academy) where one will discover talent,” she said.
Tata Sky, the pioneer of innovative services in the
DTH industry, has launched a new interactive service ‘Dance Studio’, powered by ‘Dance With Madhuri’, in collaboration with RnM Moving Pictures Pvt Ltd, founded by Madhuri and her husband Shriram Nene.
“We had 700-1,000 people who used to learn dancing online…Either they used to come and learn dancing or watch performances. We wanted to reach out to more people,” Madhuri said.
“We are going to teach all kind of dancing – classical, Bollywood style, western classical, hip hop etc,” she said.
Madhuri would be the first one to teach dance on ‘Dance Studio’ on her popular songs.
“Mostly it will be my songs – ‘Ghagra’, ‘Aaja Nachle’.. all my songs. There are other choreographers teaching other songs. Like Saroj Khanji, Pandit Birju Maharaj ji have taught Kathak, Remo D’Souza teaching ‘Badtameez Dil’, Terence Lewis has taught songs in contemporary style,” she said.
“We have ‘maha gurus’ and we have good choreographers from ‘Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa’. It is important to have good gurus. People who are talented can bring out talent in others,” she said.
The actress also plans to rope-in some international choreographers as well in her enterprise.