'Choreographing 1980s disco song was challenging'

Chennai, Feb 26 (IANS) It's a Herculean task to get everything right in a song from the 1980s, says Tamil choreographer Ashok Raj who directed a disco number of that period in the upcoming Tamil romantic-drama "Karuppampatti".

The disco number, "Naughty Raja", was crooned by Bappi Lahiri.

"Typically, choreographing isn't a big worry for me because I do that for a living. However, for the first time I found this disco number extremely difficult to choreograph. I had to keep track of so many things - the look, feel and even the set," Raj told IANS.

"Since it was a 1980s disco number, I spent close to two weeks browsing through old disco songs," he added.

"Having got the steps right, we worked on the look of the song for which we used colour filters to capture the required image effect. We also had to make sure that we had the right costumes."

Why are costumes so important for a choreographer?

"Because not all costumes are comfortable to dance in. At times, we suggest what type of costumes we need for a song. For instance, we need disco pants for this particular song. You can't expect the artists to dance in jeans, can you?"

The film is directed by Prabhu Raja Cholan, who has teamed up with Ajmal Ameer, Aparnaa Bajpai and Alice Tantardini for the lead roles.

Other members of the cast include Archana, M.S. Bhaskar, Jagan, Srinath and Devadarshini.

The story of "Karuppampatti" was inspired by a newspaper article. It is the story of a man who comes to India from France and visits a village in Tamil Nadu in search of his family roots.

Shot in three different time zones - before 1980s, Eastman Colour era, and the present day -- "Karuppampatti" has been produced by Sundar K.

Kannan has composed music for the film, which is getting ready for release.

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Karuppampatti