This is dance master Vijay Prakash’s tenth year in the film industry. He is one of the eight rising choreographers that Telugu States can boast of. After his work in the films Hello Guru Premakosame and Devadas , one can look forward to Suryakantham and Jersey .
Where dance masters Dinesh, Shobu and Prem Rakshit are all from Chennai, Telugu film directors now have more options to select choreographers for all budget ranges. “Me, Johnny, Raghu, Anne, Ganesh, Shekar and others come from the dance reality show Dhee . We have enough opportunities and we all have our place under the sun.” Vijay says they are building a base for others.
After finishing engineering in Vizag, he came to Hyderabad to become a choreographer. Aware that learning dance would not suffice to build a career, he built a troupe that appeared on reality shows, including Dance With Smitha in which he emerged as the winner. He recalls, “The show final took place in Vijayawada and producer Dil Raju was the judge. After the programme, he announced that he liked my work and gave me an opportunity to compose for his film Kerintha . It was around that time I got Run Raja Run too. I got to be known as a dancer who can do romantic montage songs well and not just dancing. Meanwhile I entered Dhee 6, a dance competition between choreographers; we went to the final in it, and there was no looking back after that.”
Dance Master Vijay Prakash
A choreographer’s career prospects depend on the sucess of the film he’s worked on. Vijay says if they work in a hit project, the hero or the director recommends them for another project. That is how they get offers. He adds, “Anyone who has a passion for dance and is creative can become a member of their Union and get a membership card and can choreograph anywhere. A choreographer should have knowledge of costumes, sets and editing. We should be able to select the options the technicians give us; for example if the costume designer or anyone else asks us which movement needs to be highlighted on camera or which can be cut, which dress looks good on the camera — be it the artiste or the background dancers — we should be able to tell them.”
Sometimes the dance numbers that work for an actor in one film receive flak in another due to the box office success, or perhaps due to expectations of the fan base of the artiste
Quite often we hear that a director himself had designed the dance moves. To this, Vijay comments, “This is an era of montages. In Arjun Reddy there wasn’t any dance movement. The story and the songs went together, this is the trend now. We create cute movements and the chemistry between the pair. There are incidents when director does it himself, they aren’t using choreographers, but the general notion is that when out of six songs at least one song has to be a dance number, we are roped in. For montages too, a choreographer can enhance and give innovative steps and movements.”
Apparently, top stars from other languages rehearse for three days before the shoot but luckily Telugu artistes are very good dancers; they just pick it up in a few minutes before the shoot, on the location.
We are in a good place, in this transition period our choreographers get to stretch their creative freedom. But one wonders how long we do we have to watch the dozen background dancers in a song? “This has been going on for a very long time. This comes on demand of the directors,” says Vijay. He avers, “ “Personally, I don’t like it. Dancers interrupt the chemistry of the lead actors. Look at Toli Prema , how beautiful the songs have been picturised.”
Sometimes a bank of steps are created for a particular hero and are used whenever a choreographer gets an opportunity. “But most of the time we compose only after we get the music,” says Vijay.
Vijay hopes to establish a dance academy but he doesn’t have the time for it right now. He hopes to take time for it in future.
