Prabhu Deva - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Prabhu Deva was born in Mysore, Karnataka to Kannada Lingayat family and was originally named Shankupani. His father, Mugur Sundar (known as Sundaram Master), was a choreographer for South Indian movies. His family later moved to Chennai where he grew up. Prabhu Deva was inspired by his father and took up dancing learning Indian classical dance forms such as Bharatanatyam from Dharmaraj and Udipi Lakshminarayanan as well as Western styles. Raju Sundaram and Nagendra Prasad are his brothers.

Prabhu Deva's first venture as a choreographer was Vetri Vizha (1989). Before that, he had appeared as a background dancer for a song in the Tamil film Agni Natchathiram. He has since then choreographed in over 100 movies. From choreography, he went into acting. His first film as an actor was Indhu (1994) with actress Roja. In 1999, Deva, Shobhana and A. R. Rahman performed with a Tamil cinema dancing troupe at the "Michael Jackson and Friends" concert in Munich, Germany. He acted alongside his brothers in the movie One Two Three. As of 2010, he serves as chairman and director of the Prabhudeva's Dance Academy in Singapore. He planned to release his first video album called It is boring in 2013. He also played the lead role in ABCD (Any Body Can Dance), the first 3D dance film in India.