Shake a leg, Bollywood style

Thillana offers a course tailored to make you look like your favourite silver screen star when you dance

PHOTO: K. V. Srinivasan

Open to all At Thillana, the new dance school

Admit it. Part of you has always secretly wanted to do the `jhin-chak,' hip-shaking and sequin-spinning Bollywood/Kollywood-style dancing. After all, the thought of running through sunflower fields in bright yellow stilettos, towards a dude in an equally yellow synchronised T-shirt is rather entertaining. How else can you explain why every time an `item number' plays at a club, the dance floor gets crammed with people.

Now, you can get professional help with your moves. Gautam and Kokila, who run the Academy of Modern Danse, have just opened a new dance school called Thillana (98400 67123).

It offers a `Bollywood Kollywood' special, a course tailored to make you look like your favourite silver screen star when you dance. "Right now, only film-based people are teaching this," says Gautam, explaining why they are the first Western dance school to offer this style. Although it is targeted at people who want to break into the movies, he says "anybody can take it up."

Thillana will also be offering classes in western dance and cardio dance. "It's not only about dancing here," says Gautam, explaining their concept of dance as a workout. "It's targeted at people who are looking for ways to improve their fitness... with cardio-dance, you not only do that, but also learn something new. Besides, it's a full body exercise."

And to keep things interesting, he says the workout will change constantly, drawing from different styles.

And for hardcore exercise junkies, there's the Xtream workout, "an explosive 90 minutes of action that involves nothing but your body, mind and soul, working in unity."

SHONALI MUTHALALY

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