Shilpa Shetty trades hot dance moves for Odissi!

Actress Shilpa Shetty’s dance moves have always rocked at the BO, be it her UP, Bihar... desi item number in Shool or her ‘Bouncing act’ in a short skirt with actors John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan in Dostana. She’s also easily known as one of the fine dancers in Bollywood. But keen to evolve, the actor didn’t bat an eyelid before trading her latka-jhatkas for the classical dance form Odissi for her new film. In fact, keen to take the dance beyond the role and evolve as a performer, she even went through intensive training to learn the ancient dance form more intricately.

A source close to the star reveals, “Shilpa has always been very passionate about dancing. She loves dancing and it’s been close to her heart even as a kid. She even used to teach dance to her friends for fun. But though she has had many dance songs which have been huge hits, she has never actually had any formal training in dance.”

However for her upcoming film Desire, where Shilpa is playing the role of an Odissi dancer, she went out of her way and met the dancers in person. “Shilpa wanted to know the lifestyle of Odissi dancers to understand the form of dancing as she wanted to get all her steps correct. Also she wanted to learn as much as possible in order to make her character look real and believable.

The actress also religiously practiced the mudras to look natural on screen,” adds the source. Apart from meeting them personally to understand the lifestyles of these dancers, Shilpa was also curious to know about how the dancers managed their families and other commitments.

The source adds, “It is very essential in this kind of a classical dance to understand the eye movements and other nakhras which needs to be practiced religiously to get the steps right, and Shilpa wanted to be perfect when it came to giving her best shot at dancing and she left no stone unturned to make it look good.”

Says Shilpa, “I have always danced for fun, but this time it felt more of a worship. I think this dance form is beautiful and I fell in love with it.” So much so, that the actor is in fact now hoping to keep practicing the dance form off screen too.