Varun Talks About ‘Street Dancer’ & Hip-Hop Culture in India

We met up with Varun Dhawan at the launch party of Breezer Vivid Shuffle and asked him a few questions about hip-hop and his upcoming film Street Dancer.

What is it that attracts you to this hip-hop culture that’s rising in India right now?

The fact that Breezer Vivid Shuffle is more of like an Indie festival, for like hip hoppers. I love that aspect of it that it’s not like this commercial thing, it’s still very Indie in nature and I think it’s giving a lot of budding artists a nice chance, a nice platform to express themselves. They don’t have to be scared of censorship, they don’t have to be scared of expressing themselves without crossing or hurting people. They’re just going and free styling over here. It’s a very new festival and hopefully it’s going to grow into something big. I’m very excited that this is the third year of it.

You have been associated with movies like ABCD2 and Street Dancer. So obviously you are attracted to the hip-hop culture and dance, what inspires you about this form of dance?

I’ve always been very attracted to this kind of dancing. Even like in Street Dancer... I mean it keeps evolving, the best thing is that it keeps evolving. I mean if you’re doing locking, popping, tutting, animation. I’m doing a lot of new school and even I had asked “What is new school?” New school is that you keep hitting the beat. It’s like you’re almost doing 3 steps with one beat, so it’s very challenging and there’s no age to be a hip hopper. I think there’s no age.

And talking about your movies, we’ve seen you in a variety of roles, from comedy to serious. What is your favourite, and what do you want to do next?

I’ve done a lot of serious stuff recently so I’m looking forward to doing a lot of comedy and dancing now. Like literally dancing a lot.

Remo D'Souza's upcoming directorial Street Dancer 3D has got a new release date. It will now hit the screens on 24th January 2020 instead of the end of this year as planned.

Camera: Sanjoy Deb
Editor: Veeru Krishan Mohan
Producer: Vishnu Venugopalan