Remo DSouza

Biography:  Remo D'Souza is an Indian dancer, choreographer, actor and film director. Although he is mainly involved in choreography, he has also contributed to other Indian film industries, mainly Bengali cinema. He is one of the judges in the reality dance show Dance India Dance. Remo D'Souza's journey to the top has not been a cakewalk. He has always been passionate about dancing. During his struggling period he was selected by Ahmed Khan to dance for a song in the film Rangeela. Soon he was assisting Ahmed Khan and before he knew it, he was on his own, choreographing for films. Remo's forte is Hip Hop, though he has received training in many genres of dance. Remo Dsouza studied in Jamnagar, Gujarat. He did his 12th from there and during his HSC board exam he realized that he didn’t have any interest in studies. He immediately left school and went to Mumbai, but his father wanted him to join the Indian Air Force. Whatever he has learnt about dance until now is on his own. He learnt dance by watching movies, music videos etc. He would rather say Michael Jackson is his guru as he used to copy his steps watching his dance on the television and then choreograph his own steps by adding something extra. Initially he had no source of income and considers himself lucky to be staying with a very generous family. After a few days he opened a dance class by the name of Super Brats at Churni Road. Along with three of his friends Remo soon opened two more branches of the institute, one in Andheri and other in Borivili. He used to travel to Churni Road in the morning, take the class there, come to Borivili for the second class and then catch the train to come to Andheri for his last class before he could go home. Initially he had four students but gradually the number increased. Income was supplemented through these dance classes but the demand for such dance classes fluctuated with the monsoon season being the worst time of the year. At one point he had literally no money; not even to pay his rent. Once, he lied to them that he had his classes and would come after two days. For those two days, he stayed at Bandra station with no food to eat. It was in an All India Dance Competition that his team came first and he got noticed. At that time, Ahmed Khan was working on Ram Gopal Varma's Rangeela and was on the look out for fresh faces. He auditioned him and he got selected. At the beginning he was rejected because of his dark complexion and unattractive features whereas Ahmed wanted fair complexioned males. But luckily Ahmed's assistant knew about Remo's dancing skills and insisted him to take him in the film. So, he got selected for Rangeela's first song, Rangeela Re. Ram Gopal Varma loved his character so much that he kept him in all the scenes. If you see the film you will notice that it opens with a close up of him sitting and having a beedi. That was his first big break as a dancer and jump started his career. From there on, he started assisting Ahmed. After assisting Ahmed Khan for one year, he got the confidence to take on an independent project. But at the same time, he was worried because that meant that he would have to leave Ahmed and if the project didn't click, he would be nowhere. It was Anubhav Sinha who gave him his first video. It was Sonu Nigam's album Deewana. Luckily the video was a big hit and later he worked on many more videos along with Anubhav and others. There was a time when he was working on four music videos in one day. As far as acting is concerned, he got his first break in Hansal Mehta's Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar, which unfortunately didn't do well at the box office. It was Anubhav Sinha once again who gave him his film Tum Bin, which proved to be a big hit. But his real breakthrough came from Kaante where he choreographed item number Ishq Samundar wich was a big hit. After Tum Bin and Kaante , his career finally took off and he has been a part of various music videos and movies since then. International Projects After Marigold (2007) and Let's Go To Mumbai City with Jermaine Jackson and Adnan Sami, Remo D`souza has two international projects, one is a musical opera for which he would be travelling across the globe and he has already absorbed all the participants from the Season One and Two of DID. While the second one is Jermaine Jackson's tribute to brother MJ which will take place at Wembley stadium for which he has taken dancers from different parts of the world. As a Director After choreographing songs in more than 100 films in last eight years, Remo turned director with Bengali film Lal Paharer Katha (a story of the red hills), which is being screened at the Dubai International Film Festival.Made on a budget of 1.5 crore, Remo's wife Lizelle D'Souza has produced the film. The film stars Mithun Chakraborty in a lead role and revolves around Chhau, a tribal dance form of Orissa and West Bengal. And the strange thing is that it is in Bengali, a language that Remo doesn't know much about. The story is inspired from his own life where a physically challenged kid's life started changing when Remo started teaching him dance and choreography. Now Remo is all set to debut as a direct in Hindi cinema with Producer Vashu Bhagnani. Faltu will star Sanjay Dutt and Jackky Bhagnani. The movie is about college going youngsters and has a social message for all parents - 'Don't force your children to do what you want. Ask them what they want'."The movie is likely to go on floors by last week of October 2009. The film is a satire on present education system and Remo is in talks with Amitabh Bachchan and Om Puri for the lead roles, and has also signed Chandan Roy Sanyal of Mikhail- Kaminey fame.