Pratik Utekar, a Mumbai-based choreographer, has become a very familiar name in the Indian reality TV Industry. Starting as a reality TV contestant to choreographing celebs like Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Madhuri Dixit, Nora Fathehi , karan jhohar, Mounie roy ,Pratik has come a long way. In this special article, the celebrity choreographer shares his inspiring career journey. Pratik started his journey at the age of 17 years and since then he has been donning the hat of a mentor. His choreography skills and out-of-the-box concepts have helped many reality show contestants lift the trophy or make it to the finals. His Notable work includes the viral snow ski performance with Ritik of Super Dancer Chap 2, Shiva act with Preetam of Super Dancer Chap 3. These performances particularly were loved both by the audience and show judges and a bit hit on social media. Pratik’s performance with Sweta on India’s Best Dancer recently hit 33 million views on Youtube.
Pratikhad a simple childhood like any other Mumbaikar kid. His Dad works as a photographer and owns Poonam Studio in Lower Parel , and his mom is a housewife. He is the second child to his parents after his sister. He completed his schooling in Mumbai and is a commerce graduate from one of the top colleges of Mumbai., The HR college Churchgate. Dance has always played a major role in Pratik’s life since a very young age. When he was in his 8th grade, he used to perform folk dance on stage at events in Bangalore. Pratik learned folk ,Mayurban Chau, from Pandit Gopalprasad Dube during his childhood.His interest in contemporary and other styles of dancing developed when he joined Shiamak Davar Institute on his mom’s recommendation, post his SSC Boards, just to keep busy and stay active during the vacation.
Pratik enjoyed his time at Shiamak Davar Institute and feels fortunate to be part of the academy which helped him discover his true passion. He feels learning beginner dance in SDIPA was more fun and interesting. He kept on enrolling during vacation every year for fun without any serious career orientation.
As a year passed by, Pratik’s interest in dance grew immensely. Nothing seemed more interesting to him apart from dancing. He recalls that his admission at The HR college was possible only because of dance! He was successful in getting a seat under the cultural quota with only 58% total marks, where the percentage cut-off was about 95%-96%.
Pratik started working as an instructor in SDIPA while pursuing his graduation at The HR college Churchgate, Mumbai. A year passed by and Pratik was promoted from an assistant instructor to senior instructor. This enabled Pratik to start leading classes. Soon he started taking dance classes all over Mumbai all 7 days.
Pratik was also a faculty in SDE Shiamak Davar Education and taught in schools like Dhirubhai Ambani School, and many international schools where dance is a subject of education. As he entered his 20’s, he started venturing into Indian Reality Shows. He started with DID doubles on Zee TV as a contestant first.
He and his partner were selected as a stand-by initially and then promoted to Geeta Kapoor’s Gang. This set up as a base for his strong relationship with Geeta Kapoor whom he lovingly addresses as Geeta maa. Stepping into Geetamaa’s territory did help him get a completely new perspective of dance. He was introduced to a different form of dancing apart from what he used to teach.
Pratik masters different dance forms including Bollywood, Always Maters Contemporary, Jazz, folk, Latin, including all modern styles. Pratik was the runner-up of Zee Marathi’s reality show Dance Maharashtra Dance. His first show as a choreographer was Star Plus’s Nach Baliye 6 with Gurmeet and Debina and emerged as show runners-up. He won the very next season of Nach Baliye 7 with Amrita and Himanshu. Pratik started his choreography and TV Reality journey with his working partner pruthvi Jadeja.
Pratik has been choreographing in leading dance reality TV shows such as DID Little Master, India’s got talent, So you think you can dance India, Dance Deewane (season 1,2,3), Super Dance Chapter (Season 2 and 3), Nach Baliye (season 6 & 7), DID 5, India’s Best Dancer, 2 Mad (Colors Marathi), Jhalak Dhiklaja (Season 9). Pratik is known to bring the best out of his mentees. He also started choreographing acts for leading award shows in Hindi and Marathi like StarDust Awards, Star Guild Awards.
And lately started choreography for the grand openings shows like big boss , big picture , and so on
Pratik and his India’s Best Dancer mentee, Mentee Mukul Gain emerged as a show runner-up. Pratik’s mentee from Super Dance Chapter 2 also emerged as a runner-up. Currently, Pratik is working on Colors TV’s Dance Deewane Season 3, where he can be also seen choreographing the dancing queen herself, Madhuri Dixit.Pratik has choreographed celebrities like Salman Khan, Karan Johar, Mouni Roy, Nora Fatehi, Alia Bhatt, Jasmine Bhasin, Rubina Dilaik, Shakti Mohan (for Jhalak Dhiklaja), Sana Saeed, Ekta Kaul, and many leading television stars.
Pratik mentions that stepping into the television industry changed his career forever. He feels fortunate enough to get mentored by top industry choreographers like Geeta Kapoor, Mini Pradhan, Punit J Pathak, Harshall Vitthal, bini Jonny ,Swaroop, Tushar Kalia, which helped him become the successful individual choreographer he is today.
Apart from dancing and choreographing Pratik did venture into acting! He was seen in one of the episodes of Sony TV’s Crime Patrol and was also a part of the show Aasman Se Aage aired on Life OK. Pratik also donned the hat of the stage director for Life Ok’s show The Voice.
Pratik is a perfect example of “where there is a will, there is always a way! He urges people to follow their passions and work hard to achieve their dreams. We wish Pratik good luck in his future endeavors.