Lawrence-Coreographer

Lawrence a favourite choreographer for actors like Rajnikanth and Chiranjeevi never had to look back after his movies like Hitler and Master. People just loved his choreography after that and has become the life of Telugu and Tamil industry. We catch Lawrence choreographing a ‘gundammo gundammo’ song,for a B.Gopal direction film casting Balakrishna and Aarti Agrawal at Padmalaya studios. Aarti says that, “Lawrence garu is a good friend. I plead him sometimes to change my steps when it gets difficult for me. But he shows confidence in me and makes me practice a little more until it becomes comfortable”.
When we ask Lawrence about his passion for dance, he says, “Youngster’s love to dance to my steps”. “They tell me that my choreographed numbers are a hit in their school functions”, he says excitedly. I make most of my steps keeping the masses and youngsters in mind “I am not a born dancer, my belief in my talent and my hardworking nature was my first step to success. My systematic practice and self-confidence is all what I had. I had a paralytic attack up to the age of seven. One part of my body wasn’t functioning at all. It’s because of God’s grace I am here. I had no helping background in the industry. I started as a small time dancer and came to this level now. God is always there to do justice to our hardwork.

It was Superstar Rajnikanth’s recommendation, which gave me a chance to join film industry. Rs 10,000/- was payed to Dancer’s Association on my behalf and bought the card for me. I was trained under choreographers Shiva Shankar and Prabhu Deva. I became a full-fledged dance master in just two years. For a year, I worked for small productions. It was Chiranjeevi who spotted me and offered me the film Hitler. I always knew that the 'Veena Step' in Indra for 'Daayi Daayi damma' would become a big craze once the film released. Chiranjeevi gave his best and spent 9 hours practicing that Veena step in New Zealand. “Lawrence I am sweating” was what he told me. Rajnikath is a great dancer. While working with him in Baba, I got very conscious. But later I got used to it. Young bubbly actors like Mahesh Babu, Junior NTR, are very professional on the sets. They give me the satisfaction at the end of it. Bala Krishna still continues his spirit and puts his soul into his dance.

In the beginning people always asked me why did I have separate group of dancers from Chennai and why didn’t I encourage local lads from Hyderabad. Hyderabadi dancers were not as good as now when I started my career. I used to have 30% dancers from Hyderabad and now it has increased to 60%.

As I am a big devotee of Lord Raghavendra Swamy, my ambition always was to build a temple for him. I have built a temple for him in Madras. One day, I will make the biggest temple for him and that’s my dream. After a long time I made a debut as a hero in this run of the mill story ‘Arpudham', a Super good Production's Tamil film that was released on the 12th of September. I am currently doing another film called 'Style' in Tamil. I am also ready to do good massy item numbers.
I give my full commitment to the producer and I would like to honestly admit that it's the team’s work and the actor and actress’s commitment, which gives the ultimate hit.
“I still get worried sometimes when I get the songs for Choreographing. The tunes and the beats scare the wits out of me but still I put my best in it to make it a hit. I listen to the rhythm and beat and I automatically begin to move to the music. Keeping the hero in mind as each one has a style I compose the dance moves. I study the actor’s body language and compose steps that suit their body language. I also keep the fans of that particular hero in mind and accordingly compose steps that exhilarate those fans”, says he.