Raju Sundaram

Raju Sundaram is a National Award-winning Indian choreographer who has primarily worked on Tamil and Telugu language films. He has also featured as an actor in the films Jeans (1998), I Love You Da (2002) and Quick Gun Murugan (2009); and directed one feature film, Aegan (2008) starring Ajith Kumar and Nayantara. He is the son of dancer Mugur Sundar, and the elder brother of fellow choreographers Prabhu Deva and Nagendra Prasad.^[2]

Choreographers and actors like Dinesh, Sridhar, Shobi, Baba Bhaskar, Jhony, Nobel Paul, Lalitha Shobi, Sathish Krishnan Viji Sathish and Japan Kumar have worked as dancers and assistants to him.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]}

He won the 64th National Film Award for Best Choreography for his work in the song "Pranaamam" from the Telugu film Janatha Garage (2016)^[10]

Career

Sundaram began his career assisting as a choreographer for his father Mugur Sundar's projects, before going on to lead troupes. He was a dancer in "Rukkumani Rukkumani" from Mani Ratnam's Roja (1992) and in Aasai (1995). He also regularly featured in cameo appearances in songs featuring his brother Prabhu Deva, with the pair making appearances in Shankar's early films Gentleman (1993) and Kadhalan (1994).^[11] After being the lead choreographer for a few Kannada films, his first break came through Mani Ratnam's Thiruda Thiruda (1993), where he was given the chance to design dances for three songs.^[12] He then went on to become a choreographer of Tamil directors Mani Ratnam and Shankar, and worked on Amitabh Bachchan's album, Aby Baby (1996).

Shankar then offered Sundaram an acting opportunity in his romantic comedy Jeans (1998), where Sundaram played a full-length role. His played the lead in the sports drama I Love You Da (2002) of which The Hindu stated the film proves "serious acting is simply not his cup of tea".^[13] He then went on to feature in the trilingual One Two Three (2003) alongside his brothers, with scenes shot in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. The film opened to mixed reviews and did not perform well at the box office.^[14] He has since primarily operated as a choreographer, making a few exceptions by starring in comic roles in Jeeva's Unnale Unnale (2007), Prabhu Deva's Engeyum Kadhal (2011) and in the Telugu film, Action 3D (2013).

Filmography

References

External links

• Raju Sundaram on IMDb