Dancing away to glory

We are sitting in the headquarters of Bollywood's leading choreographers Bosco and Caesar. It's a quaint cottage in the bylanes of Versova. Over a cup of coffee they narrate their two-decade journey in the Hindi film industry and how they have survived cut throat competition.u00a0

Sweet taste of success
Caesar: After our first year in junior college, we took part in a dance competition in Thane. We won the duet competition, after which we started working together in different college shows. We used to do them for pocket money. We worked as dancers, never as chorographers. We never thought we would be a team and could work together for so long. We didn't plan it that way. But after doing these shows, we got an offer to work in a music video. It was a very big opportunity for us, and we took it up.

We got our first ‘big break' in Raageshwari Loomba's Oye Shava music video. Initially, it was quite a task as we didn't know how to face the camera. It was while working on that video that adman Prahlad Kakkar saw us and offered us a couple of ads. After that, there was no looking back.

We worked in several music videos and ultimately ventured into films. Though we had signed Abhishek Bachchan's Shararat, we choreographed Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Mission Kashmir first.

Giving back to dance
Caesar: After films, the gradual progression was starting a dance company together, which we did. The Bosco Caesar Dance Company is a huge success in Dubai. We have started our branches in Mumbai, Kolkata, Shimla and we have plans to expand in India as well as abroad. We are very proud of our journey.

Happily ‘married'
Caesar: After so many years, I still feel that we can't work together. I feel it almost every day. But what works for us is our common love for dance and creating something new. It's the same feeling that I share with my wife Alveena. It's the understanding and the disagreement that has kept Bosco and me together. We resolve our fights over which steps to include in a song, by pulling our eight assistants together who have been with us for years. The step that gets the majority count is the one we go ahead with.

Bosco (cuts in): But I'm the one who makes the effort to patch up after a fight. You see, I'm the good one (laughs).

The toughest project
Bosco: Till date, Gunday, the forthcoming film starring Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra, has been our tougest project. While filming, Ranveer hurt his forehead and foot. Despite this, he had tremendous energy and the songs have turned out to be excellent.

Dance dance
Bosco: There are no bad dancers in the industry. Everyone has his or her own style and a certain body language. It is a challenge to choreograph songs and give such moves to actors that make the audience sit up, notice and then mimic them. u00a0