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The dancing queen

1/ 4/2002

HONEY Kalaria is hot property.

Bollywood thrives on lavish song and dance sequences - the modern Asian equivalent of Hollywoods Busby Berkley routines. And if you are thrilling to a whirling, vibrantly coloured Hindi extravaganza the chances are that Honey Kalaria will have been its creator especially if the film was shot in the UK as many now are.

Directors filming here cannot afford to ship squads of dancer over from India so they turn to Honey and her dance academy. She provided over 900 dancers for the film 'Khabie Kushi Khabie Gham'.

You might remember the video for 'Shava Shava' - yes the one with Amitabh Bachchan frolicking with all those dancers in their short pink outfits, and the video for 'You are my Soniya", again with skimpily clad dancers - all from the Honey academy. as were the dancers for Yash Chopra's No1 flick 'Mohabbatein'.

Said Honey: "Dancers are an essential part of Bollywood movies. There's a real Bollywood craze starting to spread through the UK because of films like Lagaan, Asoka and, K3G. More and more directors are also choosing to shoot in locations in England and Scotland and they cannot bring all their dancers to the UK from India so they come to us.

"It's a market that hasn't been tapped into yet and I wanted to get ahead start in it. A lot of young British Asians love Bollywood dance and want to be part of it without having to travel to India. I am able to provide that opportunity for them. At the same time I've met all the big stars, I've sat at the dinner table with Shah Rukh Khan and chatted with Amitabh Bachchan."

Honey's next venture will be choreographing dance sequences for Lawrence Desasus's film 'Indian Babu' which is to be shot in London.

Honey, an African Asian, was born in Malawi and came to England as a toddler where her family is settled in Ilford. She started dancing at the age of four learning what she could from her mother. She also entered dance classes where she mastered rock and roll, Latin American dance, belly and traditional Indian kathak dance. By the age of 13 she was teaching her contemporaries.

"During my summer holidays, while everybody else was enjoying their free time I was jetting off to India to learn Indian dance from professionals. I practised six hours everyday. It was gruelling and very hard work but it was also the best teaching I have had," said Honey.

Honey decided to make a career in dance when she was studying for masters in public relations at the University of Sterling in Scotland. After research, and with the help of a £3,000 overdraft, Honey set up Diva Entertainment's.

Still studying, Honey spent her weekends performing at shows all over England. Although she was earning an income it was all spent on travelling to and from Scotland. But the hard work paid off when Honey left university and went full time into the entertainment business. In 1997 she founded the academy starting with just 22 pupils, now six years later, she has over 700 students.

She said: "When I first started I was aiming at the Asian market but then as word got round about the academy a lot more white people where asking about Bollywood. Now five percent of my dancers are white."

Honey has also brought out videos that teach step by step Bollywood and Bhangra dancing. She has also been asked by film director Karan Johar to choreograph a dance for his cousin's wedding, which is to take place in the UK.

She added: "I love my work. It has never felt like a job more like continuing with my hobby. It's a hectic life but a life I love."