Over a decade ago, when I had expressed a desire to become a dance choreographer, my father was horrified and assumed I would next take to drugs. But my mother was supportive,” recalls Tobby, Mona ‘Jassi’ Singh’s choreographer on the reality dance show Jhalak Dikhhla Ja on Sony, with a smile. Her support didn’t go in vain. Today choreographers have not only acquired celebrity status but they can all have their share of the tempting pie, without stepping on each other’s toes.

Shiamak Davar, who won the Star Screen award for best choreographer for Dhoom 2, admits as much. “It is a lucrative profession with a glamourous component. The number of choreographers has gone up as TV and stage shows, corporate events, geet sammelans on weddings, product launches, ads and films have made way for a lot of work almost every season.”

Small wonder, then, that dance choreographers are on a high. They have never had it so good. Unlike in the past, when they worked in fits and starts, today they follow a round-the-clock schedule. More so, with the introduction of reality shows like Nach Baliye and Jhalak Dikhhla Ja.

Tobby emerged as much a winner when Mona Singh won the show last year. This self-taught choreographer is now snowed under with work. “It’s quadrupled,” he says. “I am choreographing a song sequence for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya, another for Subhash Ghai’s Mukta Arts production and some more, down south.”

Taking a cue from the likes of Tobby, youngsters are aspiring to become choreographers. Those with the slightest trace of talent for shaking a leg now dream of making the world dance to their tune. “The good thing about this profession is that being a good dancer is not a prerequisite to being a good choreographer and vice versa. But it is important to do things differently rather than do different things,” says Longi, who used to assist Farah Khan.

Success in this field also depends on one’s patience, imagination and open-mindedness as to date, there is no school in India which gives lessons in choreography, explains Shruti Mishra, 21, who is associated with Padatik Dance Centre in Calcutta.

A choreographer, instructor and performer, Mishra joined the dance centre after her Class XII board exams. Like her, choreographers usually start out by joining a dance school and are then, either absorbed by the school or branch out. Two-and-a-half years into it, Mishra is already “tired of dancing to other people’s tune. I’d rather do my own thing and get across my expression of thought,” she emphasises.

Interestingly, most choreographers are self-taught. Sharp observers, they have their role models — Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, even Michael Jackson whose album Thriller inspired Farah Khan to redefine choreography. And money is an added incentive. Once you prove yourself, earnings shoot up to several lakhs and more. But that comes after an initial phase of struggle when the earnings vary from less than a thousand to a five-digit figure. “My troupe comprises teenagers and collegegoers and most of them make around Rs 70,000-80,000 per show,” says Tobby.

Highlighting the fact that this profession doesn’t have a make it or break it component, Longi points out, “In the initial phase, there may be some amount of struggle, but this is the only profession perhaps where you get an umpteen number of chances.”

The petite Sonia Jaffer who trained at the Royal School of Dance, London, and choreographed Mahesh Manjrekar’s numbers in Jhalak Dikhhla Ja, however, lays down an imperative: “It needs at least 10 years of experience to become a good choreographer.”

Not everyone is willing to wait that long. Vishal Kanoi, 23, who runs his own dance studio, Studio Vishal, on Sarat Bose Road in Calcutta is a case in point. Back recently from a stint with Frank Hatchett — the man responsible for Jennifer Lopez’s and Britney Spears’s dance moves — as a student at the Broadway Dance Center in New York, he says, “I like to look upon myself more as a choreographer than a dancer. And if you have had exposure to different dance forms and are creative enough, there is no reason why you can’t choreograph songs.”

In fact, he adds, several of his advanced class students are game to take it up as a profession. With time, all of them are sure to find their place in the sun.