Oct. 11: City-based dance academy Rhythm Craft, which had Pradeep Gurung as one of its teachers, will host an evening of entertainment with guitar performances and Indian and Western dance forms on Saturday at the District Library.

The dance academy will organise the programme to mark its second annual day celebration.

Talking to reporters, the organisers today said in the three-hour programme, which will start at 4pm, students of the academy would also perform. There will not be an entry charges.

Gurung, 25, brought a smile to the people by winning the silver crown in a reality show, Dance India Dance, in a private television channel recently.

The academy has been working to spread Western dance forms like salsa, contemporary, jazz, free-style, locking-popping, liquid popping, bachata, lyrical hip-hop, tango along with some Indian classical dance forms among the youths in the city, which has a few dance academies.

“We are proud of the great response we have received from the youths during the past two years. We started the academy with only 11 students, which increased to 192. This is an indication of the popularity of the dance forms among the youths,” an official of the academy said.

The students said the reality shows in the entertainment channels was one of the main factors behind the rush to learn the art.

Dipankar Rajkhowa, a second-year student of Arya College, was one of the students of the academy and had been learning dance to participate in the reality show.

Another student, Sungjukta Tamuly, a first-year student, has been with the academy for several months and looks ahead to participate in the reality show.