Updated On: 07 November, 2019 12:12 PM IST | Mumbai | IANS
Shiamak Davar said, "boys who danced were considered to be feminine or gay, and women who came to dance classes were meant to be bad women."

Choreographer Shiamak Davar, who won the National Film Award for Best Choreography for Yash Chopra's 1997 Diwali release "Dil To Pagal Hai", says the film, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit and Karisma Kapoor, changed people's perception towards dance in India. "Earlier, dancing wasn't much accepted in India. Boys who danced were considered to be feminine or gay, and women who came to dance classes were meant to be bad women. That was 30 years ago.
Today, people think dancing is good because they know how therapeutic, scientific, healing and confidence-building it is. Now, kids come at a young age. Back then, there were no children in the class," recalled Davar. He added that the perception about dance in India change in a big way after Chopra's film, a love triangle woven around a group of contemporary dancers, released.