Nikhil Babar, 27, discovered his talent for dance early on, at school and community functions. “Beta dance karo,” adults would say, and he would readily oblige. He found joy in dancing for himself and for others. He’s now doing new moves. Babar refers to himself as “India’s first Magic Mike dancer”, promoting that rather teasing style aimed at women (think Vegas clubs and bachelorette parties), in India.
Babar is a dance and fitness instructor who discovered the “Magic Mike” style when watching the movie Magic Mike (2012) four years ago. The Steven Soderbergh film stars Channing Tatum as a male stripper named Magic Mike (his character would eventually give the moves their name). Watching Tatum and the others on screen, Babar says he was blown away by how smooth, fierce and sensual the moves were. He looked for dancers in India who taught this art form, and finding none, simply replicated the moves in the movie.
Before the pandemic, Babar and his sister Neha Babar, 23 and also a dance instructor, made regular dance videos for social media. In lockdown, Babar began to choreograph Magic Mike routines for fun and his sister, seeing his passion, encouraged him to upload the videos to Instagram. “I didn’t stop until I managed to convince him to put it out there. I’m so happy the world is appreciating his talent. I don’t do the Magic Mike style but his newfound popularity has been great for both our careers,” Neha says.
The @nikhil_babar_ follower count has gone from 5,000 in March 2020 to over 110,000 today. “People text me all the time, eager to learn the style themselves,” Babar says.
Aspiring students, many of them men, want to learn for their partners, and Babar is thrilled by this. “Stripping and public entertainment for pleasure are still taboo in India, but at least people are becoming more comfortable talking about sex and exploring their sexuality in private,” he says.
Men don’t follow his page though, he’s noticed. Approximately 90% of his follows on Instagram and most of the comments on his videos are by women. “Men are less bold about being seen appreciating my work,” he says.
His parents and friends see the love he’s getting and are supportive. “I was expecting a backlash in the beginning, that people will think this is vulgar and send me abusive messages, but reactions have only been positive,” Babar says. His comments are full of emojis of hearts, flames, and smileys with hearts for eyes.
Babar is careful not to cross the line into vulgarity, he says. He performs with the female gaze in mind: his videos are teasing, gentle fun, rather than raw and raunchy. He sees himself as an ally in the cause of pleasure, of all genders and sexualities.
And while he doesn’t strip or refer to himself as a stripper, he has no problem if others use that tag. “Most people in India aren’t familiar with this style of dance, and as society has more access to the internet, and to my videos, I want to jumpstart the conversation around the Magic Mike style as an art form.”
Babar plans to teach and perform his new moves offline too, as venues open up. He regularly receives requests to dance at bachelorette parties, but is worried about performing in an uncontrolled environment. He does want to promote the Magic Mike moves as performance that sits at the intersection of dance, fitness and sexuality, but in a more controlled environment than a party, he says.
In particular, he wants to do this in the Indian context. Many of his Instagram clips are set to popular Bollywood songs, as he looks to create something new and fresh. Babar has ambitious plans. He wants people all over India to feel strong, sexy, and powerful, he says. One piece of advice he has for anyone wanting to try the Magic Mike dance style: you don’t need to be any specific body type, but you do need to be extremely fit.
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