Kangana takes Bharatanatyam lessons

Kangana Ranaut has been putting in around two hours of rigorous practice daily in her efforts to learn Bharatanatyam. The actress has enlisted the services of actress-turned-choreographer Gayathi Raghuramm, daughter of noted choreographer Raghuram, to learn the classical dance form for her film Thalaivi based on the late Jayalalithaa’s life.

Jayalalithaa started learning Bharatanatyam at the age of three, was also trained in Kathak, Manipuri, Mohiniattam, and had detailed knowledge of classical music as well — a quality Kangana needs to work hard to emulate.

“There will also be a grand retro number in the film with over 100 background dancers who are adept at the craft, and hence Kangana wanted to make sure that she learns the dance properly and gets the nrita, nritya and natya of the classical form right. The bhava, raga and tala that constitutes the ‘bha-ra-ta of Bharatanatyam needs to be good enough to also ensure that the dance form is not tampered with when it comes to a movie form. This is the first Hindi film (Thalaiavi is also being made in Tamil) in the past few years where Bharatanatyam is being used. Thus, she is putting in one to two hours daily, keeping in mind that she also has exhausting script narrations and other preparations for the film, including learning Tamil,” says a source close to the development of the film.

Kangana also has been travelling extensively to Thailand and then to LA, apart from keeping her commitments for Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.