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Farah Khan taught these stars how to dance


Hindi filmdom dances to her tunes, but there are some international stars as well whom she showed a thing or two about Bollywood dance

Sonal Pandya

1. Reese Witherspoon in Vanity Fair (2004)

In Mira Nair's adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel, the social-climber lead character Becky Sharp performed a sensuous harem dance. For the multicultural number set in Victorian times, Mira Nair brought in Farah Khan, with whom she had worked on Monsoon Wedding (2001). Reese Witherspoon, who played Sharp, was pregnant when the short dance to the tune of the Egyptian song, El Salaam, was shot. This was Farah Khan's second international assignment after choreographing Andrew Lloyd Weber's Bombay Dreams.

2. Shakira at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards in New York City

Shakira's chart-busting single, 'Hips Don't Lie', from her album, Oral Fixation, Vol 2, rose to become the number one song in around 55 countries. Former Fugees frontman Wyclef Jean collaborated with the Colombian pop superstar on this global hit. Farah Khan was chosen to choreograph the Indianised version of the song for the ceremony held at Radio City Hall. She was astonished by the size of Shakira’s entourage, numbering about 30, whom she had to wade through to get to her and explain the steps. That evening, Shakira picked up the third of her four 'Moonman' statuettes after her performance.

3. Kylie Minogue in Blue (2009)

In the 2009 release Blue, Australian pop star Kylie Minogue was roped in for a guest appearance in the song 'Chiggy Wiggy'. The Punjabi pop fusion number featured Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Lara Dutta and Zayed Khan in a nightclub where Kylie was performing. Farah Khan later admitted this wasn't one of her better works, but the chance to choreograph one of the world's biggest music artistes was too good to miss. Besides, Farah Khan knew director Anthony D'Souza from her early days in the industry when she was assisting director Mansoor Khan on Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander (1992).

Recently, Farah Khan added another name to this list when she flew to Jodhpur to teach some new moves to Jackie Chan on his upcoming film, Kung-Fu Yoga (2017), co-starring Indian actors Sonu Sood and Amyra Dastur. Apparently, the Chinese star is a natural when it comes to Bollywood dancing!