Happy Birthday Remo D’Souza!  One of my top 5 favorite choreographers!

Remo D’Souza!  I can’t find much about his life/career, because no one talks about choreographers.  It’s even hard to track down, if there are multiple choreographers on a film, which worked on which song.  But I know for sure he designed some of my favorite songs.

1. This was a good year for Remo, he worked on three of the biggest movies of 2015, starting in July with Bajrangi Bhaijaan.

 

2. And then he finished out the year strong with BOTH Dilwale and Bajirao.  I liked Dilwale much much better, so I am starting with that.

 

3. And then Bajirao, although that was kind of too bad for him, because he just got a lot of grief for not making a song as good as “Dola Re Dola.”

 

4. 2015 was a good year for him, but he had a long career before that.  Although it is a little hard to track, since choreographers aren’t very well recorded.  He is the only choreographer listed for Asambhav, which makes sense as all of the songs have a distinctive visual style, split screens and fancy editing representing nightclub singer Priyanka’s stage shows.

 

5. He is listed specifically as the choreographer of this song from Dhoom, which is my favorite song from the film.  Well, tied with the “Shikdum” song.  But it is definitely my all time favorite Uday Chopra song!

 

6. He’s also listed specifically as the choreographer for this song from Meenaxi: A Tale of 3 Cities, which has a whole bunch of different choreographers, in keeping with the title.

 

7. There’s 2 choreographers listed for this film, but this song just feels so Remo-like, I am 85% sure this is him!  Also, I really like it.  Especially the part when Akshaye just stares into the camera without moving.

 

8. Speaking of Remixes, he also did this song from Student of the Year.

 

9. He took that period vibe and used it for a movie a year later, when he created an homage to Shammi’s 60s style in “Badtameez Dil”.

 

10. He also did all the songs for 2 States, which is really impressive since he was working with two not very natural dancers.

 

11. That was the most impressive dancing song in 2 States, but it’s not my favorite song from the movie, this is.

 

12. And of course, he also graduated from choreographing to directing, with ABCD and ABCD2.  Which are really amazing on the big screen, but still work pretty well even on a little youtube video.

 

13.  That’s my favorite song from ABCD, here’s my favorite from ABCD2.

 

14. Of course, those are the best full fledged song numbers in the films, but the best actual dancers were by Remo’s mentor, Prabhu Deva.  He did this in the second one.

 

15.  But that number, with the back up dancers and and all, can’t hold a candle to this, where he just takes the floor on his own for almost 4 minutes.