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She has made Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan dance at a snap of her fingers.
She only has to gesture and Aishwarya Rai, Tabu and Preity Zinta are puppets, waiting to move how she wants.
Meet Vaibhavi Merchant, talented choreographer and National Award winner.
She has choreographed song sequences in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Lagaan, Devdas, Baghban and Lakshya.
Dance, it turns out, was a natural choice for her. Granddaughter of veteran choreographer Hiralal (Guide, Mera Naam, Joker, Ganga Jamuna, Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai), Vaibhavi is a trained classical dancer of the Jaipur Gharana. "I was always into dance. I have performed at a lot of stage shows and dance ballets. I learnt Bharata Natyam from [noted dancer] Rohinton Cama."
Vaibhavi started her career as an assistant to choreographer Chinni Prakash for the film, Indian. "He was
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a very busy person and had a lot of assistants. I was one of them. I handled one of the dance classes. Sunny [Deol, who was starring in the film], had spotted me and asked me if I would like to choreograph a film he was going to produce. He was very impressed with the way I worked. At a time when pelvic thrusts were in vogue, he thought I had new sensibilities."
Indian was never released. Then, Vaibhavi started work on London, directed by Gurinder Chadha and produced by Sunny Deol. That film was also shelved and was later released as Dillagi. Vaibhavi did not work in Dillagi. Vaibhavi’s first released film was Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, for which she won a National Award. Now, the young dancer has films like Tanveer Khan’s Mumkin, Ashutosh Gowariker’s Swades, Mahesh Manjrekar’s Rakht, Ken Ghosh’s Fidaa, Vipul Shah’s Waqt in her kitty. Though most of her films and songs have fared well with audiences, Vaibhavi has her own favourites. She discusses seven of her favourite dance numbers with Ronjita Kulkarni. |
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