MUMBAI: There was a time when if you weren’t in any of the five major cities in the country, you could only fantasize about pursuing your passion for dance and only dream about learning from the big Bollywood choreographers. Then came the Internet and YouTube. Self-learning apps soon followed suit. Artists are no longer restricted by their regional boundaries giving rise to a fresh pool of talent. Now that artists in remote areas are armed with knowledge and skill, what next since the opportunities to put their skill to use are still only available in the major cities?
Dance With Madhuri, the gamified self-learning app, recognises this issue, and aims to address it with a new version.
“We have introduced a new section called ‘jobs’ in the app’s ‘Unite’ category, which allows talents to showcase their dance portfolios and upload videos etc. Those looking for dancers (perhaps for events, movie shoots, or even shaadi functions) can also post opportunities for the artists to explore, somewhat how classifieds are posted on LinkedIn,” says Dr. Sriram Nene at the launch of Dance With Madhuri 2.0(DWM), where he joined Madhuri Dixit, along with dance masters like Saroj Khan, Terence Lewis and Leena Mogre, to explain the ‘Learn Move Unite’ philosophy adopted by the upgraded version of DWM.
DWM is an answer to Madhuri’s lifelong dream of allowing everyone easy access to dance and the e-learning platform was developed two years back by her better half, Dr. Nene,along with an in-house team and the Indian software company Robosoft.
“With growing number of the users, we were encouraged to scale up the content and have now introduced more dance forms, and introduced new gurus to offer a more robust learning experience. At the same time, we have introduced new ways to use dance to stay fit with dancercise, body conditioning, dance pilates, dance yoga, tabata and more. People can learn dance and stay fit by accessing the DWM any time anywhere on any platform,” adds Madhuri.
Now, with over two lakh followers from more than 200 countries, the portal continues to be free for its users, and Dr Nene plans to keep it so perpetually.
Speaking about the revenue model for the app, Dr Nene says, “If you are looking at it from a long term perspective, it is a sponsorship advertising driven model, a classic example of which would be Facebook. With 100 million people (users) on board, its very promising solution for sponsors and advertisers. I also believe that we are entering an era where we value companies rather than look at its revenue.”
Dr Nene also hinted upon expanding this e-learning platform beyond dance to other spheres in near future.
