Dance twice as hard

Choreographer and dance show judge, Geeta Kapoor, talks about her second coming on Television.

After a successful hat-trick, Dance India Dance is back in its new avatar, as DID Doubles. While Remo D’Souza and Terence Lewis have moved on, Geeta Kapoor continues with her role as mentor and jury member of the show along with Grand Master, Mithin Chakraborty for the fourth season too.

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Although she concedes that she will miss D’Souza and Lewis when the show goes on air on Zee on December 31, Kapoor asserts that DID itself is a show she can’t refuse or resist. “I can’t speak about others, but DID is a lot more than any kind of temptation for me. The show has helped me further consolidate my identity, apart from mentoring the kind of talent we’ve seen grow here,” she says.

With Rajeev Surti and Marzi Pestonji stepping in to replace her former colleagues, Kapoor maintains that she didn’t have any difficulty getting along with either of them. "We have shot a couple of audition rounds and bonded quite well to start with. So I don’t think there will be any issues later on either," she reiterates, dismissing any notions of differences in opinion cropping up as the show progresses.

However, Geeta ma, as she’s fondly called on the show, admits that her job gets tougher with mentoring and judging the participants now. “Now that the dancers are competing in pairs, it makes judging difficult because not only are we judging their skills individually, but also in rhythm and harmony with each other,” she observes, adding that the auditions so far have given an idea that DID Doubles has a lot of talent to watch out for.

No conversation on DID can be complete without a mention of the Grand Master, Mithunda, as he’s affectionately called. Ask her about the new takiya kalaams (praise phrases used for the contestants) they’ve thought of, for the upcoming DID Doubles and Kapoor shrugs that she’s waiting for something worthwhile to come up. “The last season saw Chummeshwar being used often for a stupendous performance. During the auditions, I had thought of coining some new interesting terms… but I couldn’t think of something really noteworthy. I’m sure it will come at the right time. Mithunda’s signature salute with his Kya baat, kya baat, kya baat! is also very well-received,” she concludes.