Nach Baliye 9: Shantanu-Nityaami overcome fear, injury for aerial act

Shantanu Maheshwari with his 'baliye' Nityaami Shirke on the sets of Nach Baliye 9. Picture Courtesy: Instagram/shantanu.maheshwari

On Saturday, August 17, couple, Shantanu Maheshwari and Nityaami Shirke performed an aerial act on the stage of Nach Baliye 9. The performance was undoubtedly beautiful and also received warm responses from the audience and the show's judges - actress Raveena Tandon and choreographer-director Ahmed Khan. The couple has been one of the favourites of the judges as they have been consistent with the out-of-the-box concepts of their performances. Be it an emotional act, power-packed fun dance or any genre, Shantanu and Nityaami nail it with their perseverance.

For the uninitiated, Nityaami suffered a ligament tear, and despite that, she, along with Shantanu are climbing notches higher at the scoreboard with their dance style and moves. As many know that Shantanu Maheshwari participated in a dance reality show, and never looked back. He gained fame and went on to perform at various cities, and also represented India at one of the performances internationally. However, he is afraid of heights and their aerial act was all about lifts and balancing each other. The couple took this challenge in their stride and went on to deliver a beautiful aerial act.

When mid-day.com spoke to Shantanu Maheshwari about the challenges the duo had to undergo for this act, he told, "The entire act was a big challenge for us to be honest, as we were trying it out for the first time, but with a set intention in mind of doing our absolute best, we just went ahead with it! We were also able to give this act out a try because of our amazing choreographers Macedon and Subhash who have been so creative not only with the conceptualisation of this act but in fact all the other ones too till date. I also do have a fear of heights so the thought of performing an Aerial act was initially a bit scary. And creatively incorporating Nityaami dancing in the entire performance with an injury was another challenge, but there was no way either of us even wanted to compromise on the dancing style, so we pushed ourselves to give in more than our hundred percent into it."

Further speaking about Nityaami's injury, he said, "Nityaami even suffered quite a few bruises due to the harness she was being lifted up on, and the other crucial bit was timing our props correctly to sync it in well with the song, which again all fell into place because of our choreographers who helped us pull it off beautifully! These guys had immense faith in us both to put up the act that we did, which eventually turned out to be another amazing challenge we conquered quite well on the Nach Baliye stage."

Isn't it a delight to watch Shantanu and Nityaami dance together?

Also Read: Shantanu Maheshwari and Nityaami Shirke: Motivating each other to do our best

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