‘Hrithik’s a 9.5 on ten’

... says Sandip Soparrkar, who choreographed the actor in Kites

YOU’D imagine salsa exponent Sandip Soparrkar to be an obvious choice to choreograph for Anurag Basu’s Kites, in which Hrithik Roshan plays a salsa instructor. But Sandip bagged the project rather late. “I came on board only in January. When I got to know a film on salsa was being made, I told Anurag I’d love to be a part of it. But at that point, he said he’d get back to me,” says Sandip.

He did and Sandip’s dream came true. “It was my dream to choreograph Hrithik and Madhuri Dixit. One of them came true. It took me half a second to teach Hrithik the basics of salsa. His knee was hurt before we shot, but he didn’t let it hamper his work. It takes time for everybody to pick up salsa, but not Hrithik. If Jackie Chan, whom I have choreographed in The Myth, is an eight on ten, Hrithik is a nine-and-a-half on ten,” gushes Sandip.

American choreographer Flexy Stu, who worked with Hrithik for a biscuit ad, was originally approached for Kites. The buzz is that producer Rakesh Roshan was unhappy with his work and replaced him with Sandip. “I believe so. I’ve choreographed one-and-a-half songs in Kites. One is a classroom sequence, and the other is a party number, half of which Flexy did. Flexy had brought in a bit of hip hop with salsa. Rakesh was kind enough to tell me in advance that someone had already choreographed part of the song. I was shown the shot version and asked not to be completely influenced by it. But it couldn’t have been very different from that as it was a continuation of the same song,” explains Sandip.

It’s Sandip’s eighth Bollywood venture and he holds the unique distinction of making Kangna dance. “Kangna’s extremely dedicated and a keen dancer. She didn’t go to her caravan even for a minute. Hrithik and Kangna complement each other. And she plays his student in Kites, so she didn’t have to be a better dancer than Hrithik, which is a fact,” states Sandip.

The sets recreated Las Vegas in India. And Sandip provided inputs for the costumes by Suneet Verma. “Hrithik wears jackets, trousers and waistcoats and Kangna wears lovely skirts. I told him that the dancing shoes should be high-heeled with back support,” says Sandip.

There was no pressure from the director to Indianise salsa. “The film’s all about my dance form, so I didn’t have to do anything I hadn’t done before. Anurag said, ‘I want the kind of salsa that you do in your classroom’. The salsa in the film is very authentic,” shares Sandip.