The other side of choreographer Shiamak Davar

Kolkata, May 10 (UNI) Celebrated Bollywood choreographer and National Award winner Shiamak Davar is in Kolkata today to play host to the final performance of his students at the 'Summer Funk 2006'.

Nearly five hundred students, who had enrolled with the Shiamak Davar's Institute for the Performing Arts (SDIPA) dance workshop organised in association with Incorporated Business Consultants(IBC), underwent a complete 'performing arts experience'--from rehearsals, costume trials, confidence building, team work.

Dressed for the occasion, the students put up 15 scintilating performances on stage, showcasing a variety of dance forms like Jazz, Hip Hop, Rock 'N' Roll, Afro Jazz, Salsa, Shiamak's Indo Jazz and Bollywood Jazz, with their icon cheering them all.

The SDIPA's motto--'Have feet, Will dance' says it all and Shiamak made it clear as well. The pied piper of the decade, whose classes are a rage all over India and North America said, '' SDIPA's uniquness is that 'We allow all', which means even visually impaired and mentally challenged from four to seventy-year-old can enroll with us''.

''They have no legs but they have the spirit,'' he quipped.

However, the real suprise was when he declared, '' My focus is to be an educationist, not a choreographer. I want to use dance as a therapy for the drug addicts and abused people also, '' adding that he gets more satisfaction and new high seeing them perform.

Asked about his plans to open his institute in Kolkata, he said, ''I would love to that very soon but we need at least 300 to 400 students to start with so as to be commercially feasible''.

Shiamak, who had performed with Sting and worked with Richard Gere for HIV programs in India, had a word of advice for the government. He said, ''Schools have PT and Karate classes as their subjects, so why not Performing Arts? After all there is fitness and Art involved in it'' Asked as to what were the requirements to enrol for his institute, SDIPA, he said, ''Just passion and stage power''.

This year Summer Funk was held in nine cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Kolkata and Jaipur.

For who tops his list from Bollywood, he said his favourite dancers are Hrithik Roshan, Helen and Madhuri.

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