Mom-daughter dance away lockdown blues

HYDERABAD: A mother-daughter duo from Hyderabad has been giving lockdown goals to many netizens with their peppy dance videos. The sight of the mother and daughter grooving to hit Telugu numbers in coordinated outfits has garnered a lot of praise from social media users.Talking to Express, Dr Siri Challa, who has just completed her BDS, said: “My mother, Jayaprada, is a trained Kuchipudi dancer and used to run a dance institute. Due to Covid-19 pandemic, we had to shut it down. One day, I made a video of me and mom dancing and uploaded it on TikTok. 

We were shocked by the positive response we received. Within two months, the video was viewed one million times. After such overwhelming support, we decided to put up more videos every week.” After TikTok was banned in India, the duo moved to Instagram, and saw a steady rise of followers. “My mom has performed dance shows all over the city, and she was delighted to find a new platform to express the art form. In fact, my mom has more fans than me. People compliment her expressions,” added Siri.

The dentist was in awe of her mother’s dancing skills right from childhood, and started learning the art form at the age of two years. “As a child, I remember waiting for my mother to come back from her performances, so that I could try her attire and jewellery. Our bonding over dance goes back a long time, and I think that passion shows in our videos.”  The duo takes just 15 minutes to choreograph and make a two-minute sequence.

“We choose the song according to our moods, or the weather. Sometimes, we choose a trending song like ‘Buttu Bomma’. After we noticed that many of the viewers liked our matching outfits, we try to plan our outfits for every video now. We like to stick to traditional looks, in which my mom wears a saree and I wear salwar suits. We need a couple of takes before releasing our final videos. The process of preparing, dancing and putting the videos online takes 40-45 minutes. Last year, this dancer duo performed in Ravindra Bharathi as part of Bathukamma festival. This year, they plan to celebrate the spirit of the festival virtually by putting up special videos.

— Kakoli Mukherjee  kakoli_mukherjee @newindianexpress.com  @KakoliMukherje2