Best Dancers in Tamil Cinema

While I was watching Saravana recently and looking at how good Simbu was dancing, it struck me that it would be a good idea to list my favorite dancers in Tamil cinema and rank them too, may be the top 5. Thus formed was this post. Before the youth brigade came into the field, whenever I saw the choreography in Hindi movies, I used to think how badly we lag behind them in that field. But now that these young heroes have come into the picture and have performed pretty admirably, I no longer feel bad as we are definitely at par with them as far as choreography goes.

Anyway, for the purpose of coming up with this list, I have to leave out Prabhu Deva (and the other dance masters who have acted as heroes) bcos of the obvious reason he is a dance master by profession and so no matter even if he had acted as a hero in a handful of movies, he is still considered to be a dance master by yours truly. And then there is no place for any of the elder generation actors in my list bcos I think that none of them really mastered the art of dancing. Kamal was pretty good in classical dances (like he showed us in Salangai Oli) but he was just comical when it came to disco/ break dancing and if not for Prabhu Deva, we would have been blindly thinking that what Kamal did in the name of dancing was what dancing was all about :) So, now to the list

5) Jeyam Ravi
He is someone who was groomed to be a hero from his childhood days and hence it came as no surprise that he is very good at dancing. The fact that inspite of his tall and well-built physique, he dances pretty well is a testimony to the effort he puts in. Though he has very few movies to his credit, the promise he has shown is enough to convince me to place him at number 5 in the list. The introduction song in Idhaya Thirudan, among many others, is a good proof of his dancing skills.

4) Surya
He is easily the most-improved of the lot. Nobody can forget the way he started his career in movies, with that amateurish & forgettable dance steps in Nerukku Ner. In fact, during those days, his steps in Aval varuvaalaa were actually the butt of ridicule in skits in college festivals. But if someone who had not seen him 5 years back, were to take a look at him now, he will never believe if we show him the videos of Nerukku Ner songs. Such has been his amazing transformation. I first noticed his improved dancing in an obscure movie called Perianna. I was like "Isn’t that Surya?" I had to look twice to make myself believe. Then came Friends where he had almost matched the best in the industry - Vijay. And he has only continued to improved to this date. But having said all that, I still have to admit that he has this certain artificialness to his dancing, which will always place him behind the other dancers in the list. He is more of a choreographer’s dancer since he does exactly what the dance master instructs him to do. You can see that clearly in his dancing in the Ghajni songs.

3) Bharath
This guy is such a natural, when it comes to dancing. Though he stood out clearly among the 'Boys', the disaster of the movie at the box-office did not help his cause. But I have been following his dancing exploits, in every movie of his form then on. He danced his heart out in the songs of 4 Students and in movies like Pattiyal and AIBI, his dancing just became phenomenal. I will even say that he is the most natural of all the actors in this list but just bcos he has not too many movies to his credit, I am placing him at number 3.

2) Simbu
Inspite of all the silly & irritating things he does (I haven't even watched Vallavan yet), I have a soft corner for Simbu, for no apparent reason. I have asked myself the same question as to why I like him and I have never been able to come up with a convincing answer. And the one thing I admire most about this guy is his dancing. He is just too good. He is probably the best when it comes to doing really fast and complex steps. There is this one step that he dances in Saravana which just made me go "Wow.." Even in that useless film called Kaadhal Azhivadhillai, his dancing stood out for me. Like batsmen in cricket, actors in movies get more matured & better as their experience increases and hence I expect him to only get better.

1) Vijay
This should have be a no-brainer for most of us who watch Tamil cinema but wasn’t an easy decision for me bcos I have always thought that Simbu is as good a dancer as Vijay. The reasoning my thinking is this: if we compare the way how Vijay used to dance during his early days or his first 10 movies (which is how many movies Simbu would have done till now) with what Simbu is doing now, I am sure most of us would agree that Simbu is the better dancer. But I am giving it to Vijay just bcos of the fact that he has carried forward pretty well and to this date, dancing remains his forte and unfortunately, the only thing he is good at it. A majority portion of the songs in my list of most favorite dance songs, has Vijay in it. The Macareena song in Kushi, Aal thotta Bhoopathi in Youth, Saraku vachirukken in Shahjahan, Coca cola brown color-da in Bagavathi, the list is endless with full of Vijay songs.

There you go with the list of the best dancers in Tamil cinema. So, now to you guys. Agree/ disagree with the list? Any honorable mentions that I mssed out?