While shooting for Baaghi 3, fresh out of her experience on Street Dancer 3D, Shraddha Kapoor would do steps in between takes. Even as Kapoor tells me that her favourite styles now are popping and locking and the robot, she sways while seated to demonstrate what she means. “I have always loved dancing,” she remarks cheerfully, “So to be able to live that out in a film is a dream come true for me.” Growing up, Kapoor attended classes by contemporary dance gurus like Shiamak Davar, Ashley Lobo and Terence Lewis. But it wasn’t until ABCD2 (2015), that she decided to do it professionally. “It was my ABCD2 family,” she says when I ask her about her reasons for doing Street Dancer 3D. But the expectations were higher and the training more gruelling this time around. “It was very difficult on the body,” recalls Kapoor. “There were a lot of injuries, there was a physio on set for all of us.”
Against type
The opportunity of playing a character who is passionate, aggressive and arrogant was both new and appealing to Kapoor. Street Dancer 3D’s overconfident Inayat, she points out, is a far cry from the docile Vinnie of ABCD2. At the same time, being a part of Remo D’Souza’s steadily growing dance universe, which provides a platform for many gifted dancers, was greatly inspiring for Kapoor.
For Varun Dhawan, it was a documentary on the Sikh Welfare and Awareness Team or SWAT, a charitable organisation based in West London, that proved to be the real draw. Director Remo D’Souza and writer Tushar Hiranandani discussed it with Dhawan and he says that its subject not only inspired him to come on board but also ended up playing a big part in Street Dancer 3D.
Vim and vigour
Dhawan like Kapoor attests to the long hours of training for the film and speaks of how embodying a dancer meant bringing about changes to one’s body language too. “The challenge is every day. You are not dancing in a regular dance form. You are playing a dancer. So, your behaviour has to be like that. You can’t do anything ordinary… that was taxing and difficult,” he notes.
Dhawan admits that he has always been a dancer. The actor remembers watching broadcasts of Michael Jackson’s HIStory World Tour as a boy and says that he has always admired and tried to ape performers like Prabhu Deva, Govinda, Usher and Chris Brown. However, he is also quick to add, “But not at this level. Not on the reality show competitive level. I am dancing with reality TV stars here.”
Shared legacy
Street Dancer 3D’s trailer seems to indicate that it draws its competitive energy from the age-old and oft-used narrative of the warring subcontinental rivals.
Dhawan agrees that there is an India-Pakistan angle and an associated rivalry since the protagonists are from the two countries, but points out that it is only an angle. “It is not what the film is actually about. We dance for a cause – the rehabilitation of illegal immigrants which is also there in the trailer,” he emphasises.
