So you think you can dance?

Director Abhishek Choubey is said to have asked Kangna Ranaut to brush up her dancing skills as they gear up to start shooting for Dedh Ishqiya with dancing diva Madhuri Dixit Nene. Both the actresses will be seen matching steps in plenty of dance sequences in the film. Dedh Ishqiya is the sequel to 2010 film Ishqiya, which featured Arshad Warsi, Naseeruddin Shah and Vidya Balan. While Naseer and Arshad will be reprising their roles, the female lead will be played by Madhuri. “Music was very important to Ishqiya, and so it will remain in Dedh Ishqiya, though this time the songs and music would be very different. Yes, Madhuri will be doing a lot of singing and dancing,” Choubey said. The sequel will see Naseer and Arshad moving from Gorakhpur to Lucknow, where they meet a highly cultured Muslim family, whose members include Madhuri and Kangna. While Naseer will be seen romancing Madhuri, Arshad has been cast opposite Kangna. Choubey said the idea was to place Naseer and Arshad’s characters in acompletely different milieu. “Repetition is death for me. I was against doing a sequel in the first place, because no matter how one looks at it, a sequel is an extension of the first film. But then when I finally decided on doing Dedh Ishqiya, I decided to put the characters in a totally different ambience,” he said. With the film, Choubey hopes to revive the near-extinct genre of Indian cinema, known as the Muslim social. “I want to revive that old-world Nawabi charm of ornate architecture, the tehzeeb and the adaas that we saw in Muslim socials such as Mere Mehboob, Mere Huzoor, Chaudhvin Ka Chand and Nikaah,” the director said. “Of course, the genre would be contemporised. But the essence of the genre, the flavour of the period, its essence and grace and, most important, the decadence of the Nawabi culture will remain,” he added.