MUMBAI: Dance With Madhuri (DWM) has enhanced its leadership by bringing on New York-based industry veteran Rujuta Vaidya as international creative lead. The gamified dance platform has further strengthened its national leadership team by hiring Bollywood’s star choreographer Savio Barnes as head of content strategy.
With more than 2.5 million users across the globe and over 250 hours of content to choose from, Dance With Madhuri has grown 5X in the last 12 months and is further expanding operations globally due to increased demand. With over 35 disciplines of dance, the platform is also present on four DTH carriers in the form of VoD (video on demand) channels.
Dance With Madhuri co-founder Madhuri Dixit said, “We have been thinking of expanding our team for some time now, but we were waiting for the right people to come along. We wanted someone who shared the same vision as ours. I am sure both Rujuta and Savio with their set of skills and expertise will help us grow the platform by leaps and bounds.”
Rujuta Vaidya is a globally recognised Bollywood choreographer and has been responsible for some of the biggest Bollywood musical extravaganzas in the US. She has worked in both Bollywood and Hollywood with choreography credits that include John Legend and AR Rahman’s Slumdog Millionaire performance at the Academy Awards in 2009, Britney Spears’ The Circus tour, Black Eyed Peas’ The End Tour, AR Rahman World Tour, Priyanka Chopra’s In My City, Sridevi’s English Vinglish and the Disney-released Cheetah Girls 3 – One World, among others. She has been personally trained by highly acclaimed choreographer, the late Saroj Khan for 20 years and is a leading influence in the world of contemporary Bollywood dance.
Rujuta said, “I have been a big fan of Madhuri ma’am and have always admired the way she danced. She is the reason why I flew from New York to India to learn the art from Saroj ji more than 20 years ago. Working for Dance With Madhuri is like a dream come true for me and I look forward to evangelising and bringing her vision to students and dancers outside of India.”
Savio Barnes is an Indian choreographer who has extensively worked in dance reality shows across channels as mentor and choreographer. His career highlights have been his performances for consecutive five years in a popular and one of India’s best celebrity dance show Jhalak Dikhlaja. He has also choreographed songs for a slew of Bollywood films like Toilet Ek Prem Katha, Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd, Tum Milo Toh Saahe etc.
Savio shared, “I have been associated with DWM since its inception in 2013. As a content strategy lead my job will be to conceptualise classes and be an integral part of all the shoots and progress of the platform.”
