Two to Tango: The Dubai-based choreographer who made Randeep Hooda dance

Let’s face it, not every contemporary Indian actor is as effortlessly twinkle-toed as, say, Madhuri Dixit or Hrithik Roshan - there are many who have to work extra hard on their dance sequences for films; there are also those who would rather leave out dancing from the contract altogether.

However, neither the naturally gifted nor the two-left-feet category of thespians had anything to fear when they were shooting Mira Nair’s BBC One series A Suitable Boy, because Dubai-based dancer, choreographer and DanceSport champion Rajeswari Vaidyanathan was there to work her magic. The former banker left the corporate world to pursue her passion and founded one of the largest Latin Ballroom dance schools in India, VR DanceSport, which now has a footprint in Dubai.

A Suitable Boy - a variety of dances

Rajeswari in a chat with City Times described the experience of working with Mira Nair and the cast of A Suitable Boy, including Extraction star Hooda, who has been known to shy away from films that involve elaborate dance sequences.

“It’s not a typical Bollywood project (being a BBC production) and ours is a very niche audience, we concentrate a lot on quality; Mira was looking at a lot of people, and we were initially shortlisted to do the Tango sequence, but upon seeing our work she decided to get us fully on board for the project.”

Rajeswari, who also trained actors Vaani Kapoor and Ranveer Singh for their Tango sequence in 2016’s Befikre, said A Suitable Boy demanded more of an international flavour as far as dancing went.

“This was a very post-Independence setting where Britishers had left their mark. So the dances couldn’t be a fusion of Bollywood styles, but had to cater to the international market, and be very authentic. An integral part of the main plot was where one of the suitors gets introduced to Lata, who is the lead protagonist (played by Tanya Maniktala), and for that, Mira had the Tango in mind. We trained about ten actors in total for the Tango sequences - including Tanya, Shahana Goswami, Vivek Gomber, Randeep Hooda (who had the slots but later dropped it), and veteran star Barun Chanda.”

Mira gave her a ‘free hand’ to try different dance forms in the series, revealed Rajeswari. “Based on the plot, I used a fusion of merengue, jive and cha-cha-cha in the same sequence itself but for different characters based on what we were depicting. Also, she made me dance on the spot where she didn’t give me anything but the music and I had no clue what was expected. So there I put in the samba. The series has got a variety of dances and it is one of the first times we’ve seen this kind of fusion of so many dances.”

Scientific dance training

How easy or difficult was it to train the actors in the dance sequences? "Randeep Hooda is known to not be a big fan of dancing in films. We have a video where he talks about how he was tormented for being a bad dancer and is all praise for our training. I have been able to make people who don’t have a dancing background dance for the reason that we are DanceSport athletes and the training that we have is on a very scientific level. So it’s not just training for dance, and because of the skills and the knowledge that we have gained we are able to teach people in the shortest time.”

She appreciated the effort the actors put in towards the training. “All the actors were very dedicated and committed - but time was a huge issue so we had to go ‘bang-on’ with it. It did take time with the tango sequence for the main actors because they had to look more seasoned. I think it came out very well.”

Dubai vision

Rajeswari who has been in Dubai for about a year and a half, is currently running dance classes in the city, including virtual lessons due to the Covid situation. “Social dancing is a huge requirement here so for now we are focusing on Latin styles - Salsa, Bachata, Tango etc. Each dance form has a separate emotion. Cha-cha-cha is cheeky naughty fun. Rumba is the dance of love. So there’s a story behind each of them. I’m hoping that once this takes off we will be able to train people to take part in DanceSport competitions also, like we do back in India.”