Dancing with Shahid Kapoor

All aspiring dancers probably fantasize about one day starring in a Bollywood movie, in a big musical number dancing with their favorite movie idol. Well, for Sapna Rohra and Shivani Thakkar, both from Los Angeles, this became a reality when they won Verizon’s Bollypop contest, an online dance competition, developed by Saavn.com, a digital distributor of South Asian entertainment.  Nearly 10,000 people registered to vote for their favorite video, and the videos were viewed more than 300,000 times

The grand prize? Round trip tickets to India and a chance to dance with Shahid Kapoor in the Bollywood movie, ‘Chance Pe Dance’, produced by Ken Ghosh and choreographed by Marty Kudelka, who has worked with Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake.

Sapna and Shivani had their video shot on the sundeck in the early morning with the sun rising behind them. Their faces could hardly be seen but the silhouettes made their movements stand out and emphasize their dance ability. “Ken Ghosh stated that he picked our video because the style matched what he was planning to have in the film, and when we were in India Shahid said he liked our submission because the location reminded him of a gorgeous terrace in Punjab,” recalls Shivani. “The backdrop we actually had was the Hollywood hills! Truly a submission from Hollywood to Bollywood.”

“I absolutely loved my time in India while shooting the film,” says Sapna. “I continue to tell people that it was the best month of my life.  I have always loved both Bollywood films and hip hop dancing and the fact that both were incorporated into this experience made it even more memorable.”

Shivani, a dancer and choreographer who is set to release ‘Let’s Dance Bollywood’, an instructional DVD this year, and Sapna, who has a Bollywood fusion dance company, Karmagraphy with her partner Kavita Rao, were featured in two song/dance numbers in the movie, ‘Pump it Up’ and ‘One More Dance’. It was a challenging and fun experience as they were called upon to do Hip Hop to Bollywood music.

They shot two dance sequences within the three week stay, with four or five days of rehearsal followed by four days of shooting per song.  Says Sapna: “I would have to say that the rehearsals were probably my favorite part of the whole experience.  It is any hip hop dancer’s dream to be training under Marty Kudelka, and any Bollywood dancer’s dream to be working with Shahid Kapoor.”

“In our choreography, we made it a point to incorporate both Bollywood moves and straight up Hip Hop,” says Shivani.  “We knew that Marty Kudelka was going to specially choreograph for ‘Chance Pe Dance’, so we put a lot of thought into our choreography and made sure that it incorporated both styles of dance in a strong, dynamic, and fluid manner. We wanted it to be artistic and intelligent.”

The experience was very international, as they were dancing with local Mumbai dancers and foreign contract dancers from UK, Russia, and Australia. In fact the film industry has foreign dancers on six month or one year contracts to perform in various films, music videos and live shows.

Both Sapna and Shivani have happy memories of working with director Ken Ghosh and Shahid Kapoor. “Ken’s energy would keep us pumped and excited about the whole process, even on the fourth day when we were doing pick up shots and an umpteenth take of a chorus section,” says Shivani. “He has a great sense of humor and jokes were flying on set between him, Shahid and Marty.”

She adds, “The sets in India can have their environmental challenges, for example in “Pump It Up” the electric fans used to create a visual effect of Shahid’s hair blowing in the wind would blow tons of dust onto the set!”

Working on the extravagant sets of a huge Bollywood production was awe-aspiring and being around celebrities was sometimes tough. Sapna recalls one difficult shot where she had to pull Shahid’s face toward her own during the shooting of ‘One More Dance’, as if she’s about to kiss him.  She says you can catch it for a split second in the final cut of the song.

“I have to say it was one of the most nerve-racking things that I have ever done,” she says. “We had to retake the shot at least three times because I would react on the wrong count, pull too hard, not be aggressive enough… the list goes on and on. Either way, Shahid was very nice about it and it was an exciting moment.”

Ah, the travails of Bollywood!