Saiyaara choreographer Vijay Ganguly reveals: “Ahaan Panday was a NATURAL from day 1; lip-synched to other film songs during workshops”; explains aesthetic approach behind Aneet Padda’s bikini shot: “We wanted the romance to be felt by the audience and not go into a sexual zone”

Vijay Ganguly is very happy because his choreography in the songs of Saiyaara has been well received. He talked to Bollywood Hungama about how he worked on the film directed by Mohit Suri and shared more about his process. He also talked about some surprising comments he got, like, “What’s the need for a choreographer in Saiyaara? Where is the dance? ” He laughed and said he didn’t know how to explain that choreography isn’t just dance steps. 

How did you get involved with Saiyaara? 

When I met Mohit sir for this film, he told me that it doesn’t have a usual dance number, but the songs are a key part of the story. 

With every song, the story moves on. So he needed someone to be on set for a long time for choreography. Usually, we take 4-5 days to shoot a song. But here, I was needed for 25-30 days. I thought that was a lot, but I decided to give it a try. As soon as I started working, the atmosphere, the honesty, and how Mohit sir was making the film were so great that I wanted to be on set whenever I could. 

How did you prepare the actors (Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda), especially since they are new to this? 

Normally, for dance songs, there are rehearsals. 

For Saiyaara, Adi sir (producer Aditya Chopra) said we should have the actors lip-sync. The girl doesn’t have to do it, but he wanted her to understand what lip-syncing means in case we needed it. So we had workshops mainly with Ahaan, but also a bit with Aneet because she had to sing. At that time, the songs weren’t ready, so we made Ahaan lip-sync to songs from other films. We had to get this right because the film is about a singer, and it needed to look real. We did a lot of workshops to get it right. 

Ahaan was natural from the start. 

Also, Mohit sir knew exactly what he wanted. He had already prepared the actors in terms of how they should move and act. That made our job easier. 

The song “Tum Ho Toh” shows Aneet in a bikini. 

It looks classy and is shot beautifully. I think that was the intention. 

100%. 

If love stories are not made honestly and you add certain shots just for fun, it won’t look like a real effort. Thankfully, Mohit sir’s approach was honest. Also, working with new actors was great because they came with a clean slate. We wanted the romance to be felt by the audience, not go into a sexual zone. We can only see how well it worked once the film is out, and I think we got it right. 

A lot of credit goes to Aneet Padda and Ahaan. 

She was really amazing in the film. 

Yes, she did a great job. 

Again, credit goes to Mohit Suri. Since this wasn’t a usual dance song, there were a lot of montages. I used to watch him direct and I could see he was really sure of where we needed to go. Sometimes I added my own ideas, but Mohit would suggest something different. So I would go with his vision. The process was so nice that we knew the film was going to work. Lekin itni chalegi yeh nahin pata tha (laughs).