She first heard about Sheila ki jawani… at Mehboob Studio from the film’s director-choreographer Farah Khan who wanted a trained professional to teach her heroine, Katrina Kaif, belly dancing. “Katrina was in Spain then, shooting for Zoya Akhtar’s Zindagii Na Mile Dobara, and I had to air dash to South America too. At our first meeting we were both jet-lagged,” recalls choreographer-instructor Veronica Simas de Souza Rosas whose clientele includes actors Ria Sen, Masumeh Makhija, Rakhi Sawant, Salman Khan’s sister Arpita and Shah Rukh Khan’s wife, Gauri.
Veve, as she is popularly known, was impressed with Kaif’s posture and her professionalism. “Katrina had been working on her body with her trainer, and was determined to get every movement right,” she says.
What makes belly dancing different from the Bollywood-styled matka-jhatkas is that while in our filmi dances the head, chest and limbs move in tune to the music, in the former, everything is still, and only one isolated muscle vibrates. “Less is more,” smiles Veve who worked on Amaan and Ayaan Ali Khan’s music video, Desert Dunes.
She says that they would work on each movement for a minimum of half-an-hour during the five-day rehearsal before Katrina was ready to face the camera. The belly dance portions were shot over one day during which the actor was believed to have suffered abdominal cramps.
