Lauren Gottlieb, who has been hugely credited for bridging the gap between Hollywood and Bollywood with her remarkable talent as a dance performer and who became a household name with the USA based dance show ‘So You Think You Can Dance’, since 2005, is currently stationed in India for work commitments.
The actress, known for her scintillating dance acts and passion for creating content in the West for her fans across the globe, recently got injured a day before her dance performance for the launch of Josh Wakao, India’s biggest influencer festival. But being a hardcore professional, Lauren overcame the obstacles and pulled off an energetic dance number, much to the surprise of the show organisers.
Lauren informs, “When I got the call from Josh, I felt I should choreograph the dance number as I have never done that for my own show even though I work on the content of all my reels and everything. I have never choreographed a six-minute long Bollywood pataka number before. Honestly, it scared me. But I am back to doing things in life which scare me. So I said yes to choreographing it. I was in Arizona, New York, and then on a flight to India, all while I was assembling my team of assistant choreographers including Tanishq Joshi and Akanksha Sharma, dancers, getting the music ready, costumes and props, etc., for the song. It was a big task to accomplish while traveling across the globe. When I reached India I went straight into rehearsals. Everything was going great. We only had three days of rehearsals to pull this off so it was a super tight schedule.”
She elaborates further, “I danced so hard, because I was in love with the process of it all, that I over rehearsed. I have only ever over rehearsed one other time in my life. It was during the semi-finale of ‘Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa Season 6’ (2013), when I was a contestant and I did the hardest dance number. I over rehearsed and pushed myself to the maximum that I couldn’t move my body the next day. Same thing happened with this performance. I rehearsed to the extent that I couldn’t move my body as fast as I needed to. I called my physiotherapist who worked on my body and legs for one and a half hours. After that, I went to do the stage rehearsals, got myself a massage, and then opted for cold therapy, which I have found is the best way to relax your muscles. And just like how major athletes would do after their matches I did this cold therapy because dancers are athletes. So I filled up the tub with the coldest water and then filled it with ice. At the same time I had the shower going with hot water. I went for the hot and cold combination back and forth five times for a minute each. And that really helped my body bounce back. Eventually we all had a killer show.”
Lauren made her Bollywood debut with the dance-based movie ‘ABCD’ (2013) and was also hugely appreciated for her effortless dance performances in popular movies including ‘Welcome To Karachi’ (2015) and ‘ABCD 2’ (2015) among other films. Interestingly, she has been a competitive contestant in the dance reality show, ‘Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa Season 6’ and also judged Season 8 in 2015 of the same show.
