MUMBAI: From dance battles to face-offs, Star Plus is all set to find new dancing stars across the country. An open stage forum for solo, couple and group performers, Dance + (Dance Plus) aims to be a hard core dance reality show.
The new talent hunt is produced by Frames Productions.
According to Frames Productions founder Ranjeet Thakur, dance is a much loved genre in India for everybody. After the star studded dance show Nach Baliye (currently on-air), the channel wanted to target the common man. It can be recalled that in the year 2013, the channel had tried its hands with a common man’s dance programme in India’s Dancing Superstar (IDS).
“After IDS, Star wanted to re-format a little, jazz it up in a different style and this is how Dance + was born. We came up with the idea of doing the show wherein solos, duo’s and groups will be performing with mentorship,” explains Thakur.
The makers have roped in talented choreographer Remo D’Souza who will don the hat of a super judge. Moreover, the show will have three mentors Dharmesh Yelande, Shakti Mohan and Sumeet Nagdev who will be guiding and teaching the contestants and choreographing the act. “The idea was to have a dance show which would blend the dancing talent of a common man with the expertise of the mentor,” asserts Thakur.
Just Dance
The makers have been working on the show for the past one year. “Considering all factors like understanding the market, developing it, understanding the kind of dancers and talent that we can get etc, it has taken us over a year,” informs Thakur.
Thakur believes that it is very important to get talent from across India on a show like this. The talent hunt has traveled to 18 odd cities and reached out to maximum people. This apart, the show also travelled to smaller towns, conducting silent auditions for six months to get the best of talent.
Auditions started from 3 June in Guwahati followed by Bhubaneshwar, Ranchi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Indore, Vadodara, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru and Mumbai being the last destination on 28 June.
To top it all, digital auditions were conducted by Frames in-house. “Because we have our own network also for finding talent, we knew our own talent, co-coordinators and people across India. Many people are sending us their dance videos even now,” he says.
The 12-week series will have the channel first airing audition episodes followed by the mega audition episodes. The grand premier will have top 12 contestants divided into three teams (four in each) who will then battle it out for the title.
The show will go on floors in July and will be shot at Yash Raj Studios, Mumbai. It plans to go on-air by end of July or first week of August.
