The songs’ choreographers, Aafat and Nadiyon Paar, Piyush and Shazia, told Hindustan Times that it was difficult to get Vijay Deverakonda and Janhvi Kapoor out of their comfort zones in the songs.
Piyush and Shazia are quickly delivering one hit Bollywood number after another. Janhvi Kapoor, Vijay Deverakonda, and Ananya Panday have literally danced to their tune. The choreographer duo is going places after their rise with reality show Dance Plus in 2016. From shooting for a Bhediya song in Arunachal Pradesh’s Ziro to creating Bali via VFX in Liger song Aafat, the choreographer duo is going places. Piyush and Shazia discussed breaking Janhvi’s’sweet girl’ image and making Vijay Deverakonda dance like a pro for the first time in an interview with Hindustan Times. They’ve also spoken out about everything that wasn’t real in Liger’s song Aafat.
Shazia says they like to be versatile in their choreography and choose the song and location based on the storyline. “Aafat was shot in Goa during the pandemic,” she said of her collaboration with Ananya Panday and Vijay Deverakonda on the film. The song’s exotic islands in the sea and distant caves are all VFX. That is the power of visual effects. It’s difficult because you have to visualise it in real life, which is just open sky, land, and sea.”
“We had to shoot Aafat in Bali, but there were many difficulties in travelling due to the 15-day quarantine rule during the pandemic,” Piyush added. We chose to film it in Goa with full VFX as the backdrop. The scene in which Vijay and Ananya are standing on a rock with a huge cave behind them is entirely VFX. When Vijay performs his solo dance, the green pointed mountains in the centre of the sea behind him are also VFX. In reality, it was just an endless sea in the background.”
Shazia also revealed that Vijay Deverakonda had to put in a lot of effort to get into the right mindset for Aafat. “Liger was Vijay’s first film in which he had to do a lot of dancing.” He hadn’t done much dancing in his South films. “Vijay is not a natural dancer and had to practise a lot, but he eventually learned it,” she says.
Shazia also revealed that Vijay Deverakonda had to work hard to get into the right zone for Aafat. “Liger was Vijay’s first film in which he had to dance a lot. He hadn’t done much dancing in his films from the South. “Vijay is not a natural dancer and had to rehearse a lot, but he learned it in the end,” she says.
“Hats off to the music composers and director of Nadiyon Paar for doing it so well,” Piyush says of the recreated version. The song has not been ruined. There is more pressure if the audio is well recreated. Janhvi’s first solo dance number as a performer was Nadiyon Paar, and she nailed it. After appearing in the song, her entire perspective on her changed.
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKj5m9cSMZs
Janhvi, according to Shazia, made an effort to show her glamorous side on screen and excelled at it. “Janhvi is an excellent dancer with natural grace.” She had to break out of her sweet girl shell and adopt a hot body language. She had to believe in herself that she could enter this zone and kill it. “It was difficult to coax that performance out of her,” she admits.