HT Cafe

Sanya would like to play a ballet dancer

- Pooja Sharma pooja.sharma@hindustant­imes.com ■

Sanya Malhotra rose to fame with the biggest hit of 2016 — Dangal. Not many would know but the actor is a profession­al ballet dancer as well. Sanya had to stop dancing a few years ago, but she is regularly practising one of her favourite art forms again after four years.

“I had to leave it because I was shifting to Mumbai to pursue my acting career, and I couldn’t find any good ballet institute here at that time. It’s been four years since I’ve done any sort of dancing. So when I was prepping for Dangal, my wrestling coach specifical­ly instructed me to not dance, so as to avoid looking graceful while wrestling,” says Sanya, who began learning ballet after her graduation in Delhi.

Talking about the difficulti­es involved in learning the dance form, she says, “It is not easy at all. I don’t remember all the technical terms; there is a lot to learn. There is no end to it, and that’s not just with ballet, but with any dance form — classical, Indian, hip-hop or contempora­ry. It teaches you discipline. It is graceful. I wish I had learned it since childhood.”

On asking if the young actor would like to play a ballet dancer on screen, she says she would love to. “It needs six to seven hours of training daily but I don’t mind doing that at all, “says Sanya.

I had to leave it [ballet dancing] because I was shifting to Mumbai to pursue my acting career, and I couldn’t find any good ballet institute here at that time. SANYA MALHOTRA, ACTOR

 ?? PHOTO: GAURAV BATRA ??
PHOTO: GAURAV BATRA

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