The Indian government has conferred Prabhu Deva, a veteran actor - dancer with the Padma Shri in the field of art-dance. Often known as the Indian Michael Jackson, Prabhu Deva has thrilled audiences with his agile moves and choreography in a career spanning 25 years.
The actor has performed, acted and choreographed dance sequences in several films in multiple languages including Hindu, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu etc. He has even previously won two national awards for Best Choreography - one for the 1996 film Minsara Kanavu where he starred opposite Kajol and Aravind Swamy. The other award was won for the 2004 Hindi film Lakshya which was directed by Farhan Akhtar and starred Preity Zinta and Hrithik Roshan.
The multi-talented artist has also directed several films in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu including 2005 Tollywood blockbuster Nuvvosthanante Nenodantana starring Siddharth and Trisha and 2005 Hindi film Wanted, which is a remake of the Tamil film Pokkiri starring Vijay.
Prabhu Deva made his breakthrough as an actor in the 1994 film Kadhalan - where he plays a student. The film won 4 national awards and boasts of two super hit songs ‘Urvasi Urvasi’ and ‘Mukabula’ where he showed his prowess as a dancer. The songs were composed by AR Rahman. The film went on to become the highest grossing film of 1994.
He ventured into choreography with the 1989 film Vetri Vizha starting Kamal Hassan and has since gone on to choreograph in over a 100 films.
Padma Shri is the fourth highest civilian award after the Bharat Ratna, Padma Vibhushan and Padma Bhushan. It is a titled conferred by the government of India to acknowledge distinguished contribution to different spheres of activity. The awards are presented by the President of India on every Republic Day.