Cinesprint - June 2015

of the
Legendmonth
One such person who played a major role in
introducing dance to films is Prabhu Deva. He
has been an actor, choreographer and dancer
in Indian cinema. He has majorly worked in
Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam movies
in his initial days of his career after which he
gained national wide popularity.
Beginning with a series of acting roles in the
1990s and early 2000s includingKadhalan
(1994), Love Birds (1996), Minsara Kanavu
(1997), Kaathala Kaathala (1998) and
Vanathai Pola (2000), Deva turned up as
a choreographer and he has been the first
consideration in the mid 90s and 2000s as
choreographer. Prabhu Deva was inspired by
his father, Mugur Sundar, a choreographer
for South Indian movies, and took up dancing
learning Indian classical dance forms such as
Bharatanatyam from Dharmaraj and Udipi
Lakshminarayanan as well as Western styles.
Raju Sundaram and Nagendra Prasad are his
brothers.
Deva first appeared as a background dancer
for a song in the 1988 Tamil film Agni
Natchathiram. Deva’s first venture as a
choreographer was Vetri Vizha (1989). He has
since then choreographed in over 100 movies.
From choreography, he went into acting. His
first film as an actor was Indhu (1994) with
actress Roja. In 1999, Dheva, Shobhana and
A. R. Rahmanperformed with a Tamil cinema
dancing troupe at the “MJ & Friends” Michael
Jackson tribute concert in Munich, Germany.
He acted alongside his brothers in the movie
One Two Three. As of 2010, he serves as
chairman and director of the Prabhudheva’s
Dance Academy in Singapore. He planned to
release his first video album called It is boring
in 2013. He also played the lead role in ABCD
(Any Body Can Dance), the first 3D dance film
in India.
After a successful career as an actor and
a choreographer, Prabhu Deva made sure
he succeeded in direction too. He made his
debut as director with a Telugu movie titled
Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana. He then went
on to direct films in Telugu, Hindi and Tamil
languages such as Shankardada Zindabad
(2007), Pokkiri (2007), Wanted (2009), Rowdy
Rathore (2012) and R... Rajkumar (2013). His
last directorial venture Action Jackson ended
as a debacle at the box-office starring Ajay
Devgn and Sonakshi Sinha. He is currently
directing Singh Is Bling with Akshay Kumar
and Amy Jackson in the main leads. The movie
has been slated for release on October 2nd
this year.
Along with these Prabhu Deva has been seen performing live in many public events along with
award functions. He has garnered two National Film Awards for Best Choreography; widely
referred in the media as Indian Michael Jackson. He has been alleged in a relation with South
Indian actress Nayanathara and their love story almost went near to marriage. However they
had a break up and Prabhu Deva is now staying in Mumbai. Along with these he has been seen
in various dance videos and promotional activities.
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