Dancing for supper

Smoke, psychedelics, music. Five boys take centrestage. Perfectly coordinated, immense energy. The crowd shrieks in appreciation. The Creators are in full flow at the Teen of the Year contest at Don Bosco School, Park Circus.
Sandeep Vyas performs a live wire act. With him is a young vibrant team dancing to his beat. There is no chaos with this Mayhem, as the group calls itself.
From school and college fests to performances with professional artists, dance troupes, born and bred in Kolkata, straight out of school and college, are taking the city by storm.And raking in the moolah. Mayhem has even performed abroad — in Jakarta and Burma.
“Dance is a passion. And a passion that can earn money. That is how we began,� says Rajiv of The Creators. This year-and-a-half old group charges about Rs 1,500 per sequence.
Says Mayhem member and dancer-choreographer-actor Ayan Mitra (the hunk you will see opposite June Malia in Subrata Sen’s Nil Nirjane), “The secret is that people have really taken to it. They are not hesitant about their children performing in front of strangers. What used to be proud family moments, now is shared with an audience.�
This sentiment has meant a mushrooming of dance schools, where these dancers also double up as teachers and choreographers. Gurpreet Sethi, a Montessori consultant, who began working with children for concerts, set up Xanadu, her first dance school in 1989 and now has three more in the city.
New Alipore boasts of Tarang, set up by drummer Rajiv Bose, which has Ayan as teacher. Ayan and Nishit Arora together run Co’motion at Jodhpur Park.
This year, freelancing has caught up with professional dancers. For a fee, they perform with groups when extra dancers are required and other performing artists. “This means that a good dancer can make a lot of money,� Ayan says.
Gurpreet, along with team mates Vineeta Duggar and DJ Akash, is the city’s link to Sony’s Boogie Woogie and was responsible for bringing the show, held at Aquatica, to the city for the first time in February last year. After three more shows in the city, Sony is now planning a six to eight episode special for Kolkata on Boogie Woogie, Gurpreet says. And it’s not just filmi numbers that are hot.
Salsa, jazz, fusion, you name it and you have it. “Salsa is happening even if people don’t really understand it,� says Xanadu choreographer Chandran who trained with Prabhu Deva’s father.
Then there are purely bhangra groups like the Khalsa Boys. Students at the Khalsa Modern Secondary School, they are not yet into the professional circuit, but are getting noticed.
The trend was started about five years ago by Beat Busters, the mother group for most of the new troupes in town. Payments were low then, maybe as little as Rs 500 for a show. This has gone up to anywhere between Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,000 now.
Most schools have students between eight and eighteen and charge Rs 500 for eight classes, twice a week. It begins with basics where the teachers identify the “beat in the students’ body. And then we move into specialization,� says Nishit.
Many girls at these schools are undergoing formal training in classical Indian dancing as well. “They need to keep in touch with their roots too. Besides, it inculcates a sense of discipline,� said six-year old Aashna’s mother Nipa Shah.
Apart from Aashna, Shantanu Maheswari, a class VI student too has boogeyed on the Sony show. He also contested on Kya Masti Kya Dhoom on Star Plus and the Mini Superstar contest in Mumbai.
Neha, in class IX at sunrise school remembers the all-India contest at Jaipur where she was the only other contestant from the state. “I was only 11 and the contest was for those over 15. But I came second,� says Neha, who has been dancing since she was three. And there are moms too who are into boogeying.
Meet Renu Burman, mother of two sons in their twenties, who did a powerhouse performance at the Aquatica. “This is my way of keeping fit,� says the businesswoman who has a shop in Shreeram Arcade. So put on your dancing shoes and set the stage on fire.