Also starring ace dancer and choreographer Salman Yusuff Khan, Elli has taken the song notches higher with her beautiful portrayal. In fact, she nailed the contemporary and Latin moves, usually styles that’s considered one of the most difficult dance forms and hardly ever attempted in the industry. Rahul Jain’s voice adds the much needed gravitas, whereas Salman and Elli’s electrifying chemistry makes it a spectacular number. Ever since the song hit the digital platform, the audience has been going crazy about the dance moves. People have been showering a lot of love and accolades for Elli, who clearly delivered her best song till date. In fact, Elli, in a never-seen-before avatar, stunned the audience and has now introduced a completely new form of dance in the industry.
Known for her creative inputs, Elli also doubled up and gave her ideas on the interesting costume that she adorned for the song. The pretty actress wore a ruffled dress that embodied Nature in its truest form. She shares, “I sat with Saurabh, the director, and discussed the dress that I’m wearing. It’s very different from what you usually see for contemporary or Latin dance. I wanted a little fairy tale look which is also very bohemian – very artistic yet asian fusion. I wanted to look like Nature, as it stands for nurturing, and that is what the girl (that I portrayed) was for Salman’s character. It was important for me to create a look that has depth and meaning to it. Elli stands out in the song, with her entire look and dance, and was also at the receiving end of a lot of praise from industry insiders as well. It won’t be wrong to say that Fidaai has established Elli as one of the strongest performers from the film fraternity today.
Elli is happy with the response to Fidaai. “I’m absolutely stunned with the response to Fidaai. It was a very tough shoot, since I ended up shooting for 24 hours nonstop, with only 30 minutes of lunch break. Something I never knew I could be capable of doing! I genuinely worked very hard to nail this choreography and I was very excited yet nervous because I wanted the performance to be perfect, just the way our director/Choreographer Saurabh visioned it to be.
Saurabh Prajapati, the director of Fidaai, tells us, “I saw her performing live 2 years before in Femina Miss India. I got to know that this girl has everything in her – the training, her passion, her body language, her lines, her postures – she is a true artist. The first person who came to my head when I got this song was Elli AvrRam because of all these qualities. I have worked with so many other actresses also but there is a difference between a great performer/dancer and someone who has the x-factor, which in Elli’s case is the way she emotes while performing. It’s very natural. She worked very hard for this song. To achieve this choreography, she used to rehearse 6-8 hours every single day continuously for 15 days. She got very bruised and injured during the rehearsals but she still carried on gracefully. She even injured her shoulder on the day of shoot, when we just started! I’m grateful she was not one of them who wanted to rest, because we were running short on time. And she did not even ask me to change anything because she’s a perfectionist that way, and someone feels she can keep improving. She wants to deliver the steps and movements as per the director’s vision. And more than me, she gets angry on herself when she doesn’t get it right.
Speaking of Elli, Saurabh adds, “I would say Elli has set a new benchmark for all the actors out there because she has done something which never happened before in Bollywood on that level. We got calls from all the top dance director’s, whether it was Remo D’Souza, Terence Lewis, Prabhu Dheva or Bosco-Caesar etc. They all congratulated and applauded us, especially Elli for the song because she has left an indelible mark with her act.”
Fidaai, Directed and Choreographed by Saurabh Prajapati, sung by Rahul Jain, starring Elli AvrRam and Salman Yusuff Khan is now OUT.
