Astad makes Ash dance

Astad Deboo, the Padma Shri award winning fusion dan-cer and choreographer has been approached by filmmaker Mani Ratnam to teach Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (also known as Ash) some new steps. The actress, who is shooting for Ratnam’s Raavan with husband Abhishek Bachchan deep in the jungles of Kerala, is required to dance a climactic life and death sequence, reported Bombay Times (BT) on July 27, 2009.

Deboo has, as per an unnamed source of BT, chosen a tandav of passion, retribution and redemption for Ash, because the director wanted a fusion of kathak, ballet and contemporary dance. Ash has to dance barefoot on unsafe, slippery ground, and the steps chosen by Deboo are intricate, mentions BT. Moreover, the actress has to perform the dance twice in quick succession, first with her husband for the Hindi version and then with south Indian superstar Vikram for the Tamil version of the film. Deboo e-mailed Parsiana on August 6 to confirm that he has also choreographed the dance steps for the two male stars.

Though this is his first experiment with Bollywood, in the past Deboo had agreed to help out with famous artist Maqbool Fida Husain’s second experiment with filmmaking, titled Meenaxi.

Astad Deboo (right) has choreographed a sequence for Ais-hwarya Rai. Photo: aishwaryaraifanclub.net

The globe trotting dancer recently spent 11 days in Switzerland to "work on a new language of movement, combining the discipline of physical theater” with his own technique "which uses minimalism and expression.” He was on a Pro Helevetica grant in the little village of Ticino, where he stayed with choreographer Thomas Mettler. Deboo wrote to the Afternoon Despatch and Courier of August 6 that "it was like... meditation, where we spent six hours in the studio, getting back to his (Mettler’s) beautiful home for a meal that he usually cooked, talking about dance all the time… On the last day I was there we gave a small performance” for the people of the town who "had been so kind to me.”

Deboo outlines his hectic schedule in his e-mail to Parsiana. In mid August he will be in Delhi to begin rehearsals with street children who were trained by him (see "Breaking boundaries,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, May 21, 2009). So pleased was Delhi’s chief minister Sheila Dixit with their earlier performance that she has asked Deboo to repeat it for a much larger audience. Deboo plans to bring these youngsters to Bombay where they will dance at the Experimental Theatre of the National Centre for the Performing Arts from October 1-3. On October 6 he has been invited to participate in the annual dance festival of Purana Quila, New Delhi where the drummers of Manipur will share the stage with him, after which he will be jetting off to London to choreograph for deaf performers at an event there, Deboo writes.