Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan, who recently celebrated his birthday in Mumbai, once spoke about how he learnt tap dancing for ‘Dhoom 3’.
A BTS video shared by the actor’s production house, shows the actor breaking down the process of learning the dance form.
While tap dancing may take a few years to get the basics clear, Aamir was given the window of 45 days to not just learn but ace the dance form.
The actor said in the video, “I have always been fond of tap dancing. How fast they move their toes and their heels to make a certain sound pattern and all that. Aditya Chopra was thinking of modern tap dancing which is stomping. We had to do a title song in ‘Dhoom 3’ and everyone was discussing what type of song it would be. So I told Adi that I have always been fond of tap dancing. He got very excited. He said yes, tap dancing. There has never been tap dancing in Hindi films. I said, I will learn.”
However, the actor had a very different idea about tap dance which is a very broad form of dance. The tap dancing which he was thinking of was of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, which is actually classical tap dancing. Aditya Chopra was not thinking of that. He was thinking of modern tap dancing which is stomping.
The superstar further mentioned, “It’s very fast. It’s very different from that old style. So, Adi contacted the world’s top tap dancers and said that we have a 3 minute sequence of tap dancing. You can choreograph it and teach it to our actors. I only had 45 days to learn tap dancing. All those people (in the crew) had been doing tap dancing for 18-25 years. I am the only one who has been doing it for 1.5 months. So I went to Australia for a month. And I stayed there. I went to the studio, even small kids used to learn with them.”
“So I used to do training with them in their school. I trained there for a month. I trained in Bombay for a week before going there. And after coming back for a week. So I rehearsed for 1.5 months for that song. That was a first for me. I fought with Adi till the end that you have made it too fast. It should have had a lyrical quality of tap dancing. Because I really like that very light tap dancing. Which hasn’t happened yet. Maybe I will do it in the next film,” he added.
