The very first movie fully Choreographed was Kalpana (1948) produced and directed by the renowned dancer Uday Shankar. In the same year, another film released was S S Vasan's Chandrakanta choreographed by Tarun Chopra, the disciple of Uday Shankar ji. With the success of both these films, the era of dance began in Hindi Cinema. Before that, a film Roti (1942) became hit because of Sitara Devi's Dance.
The story of Kalpana revolves around a young dancer’s dream of setting up a dance academy, It is a disguised autobiography of Uday Shankar. He presented dance in a captivating manner, and with a message that he wants India to be saved from the west and its bad influences.
V Shantaram was the earliest filmmaker who made films on dances and dancers of India. His film Jhanak Jhanak Baje Payal(1955) was one of the first Hindi films that revolved entirely around dance. Filmmaker-actor V Shantaram directed wife Sandhya and dancer Gopi Krishna in this classic. A young 17-year old Shivkumar Sharma too was heard playing santoor in this National award-winning film. This was also the first time santoor was used in Indian cinema. Magnificently shot in Technicolor, the film is considered a classic with hit songs such as Jhanak Jhanak Baaje Re More Palaliya, Jo Tum Todo Piya, and Murli Manohar. This too remains one of Ganesh Acharya's favourite dance films.
He made another film Navrang(1959), this film was heavily concentrated on the dance sequences, a few of these dances are immortal. Diwakar(Mahipal) is a poet and loves his wife Jamuna (Sandhya)more than anything. But Jamuna feels that Diwakar lives in a fantasy world and is irresponsible in the real world. Diwakar creates a muse from his imagination, who looks exactly like his wife and whom he calls Mohini.
Nartaki (1963) The story was about a dancing girl (Nanda) brought up in the Tawaif (courtesan) milieu, who wants to better herself with an education. She is helped amidst great societal clash, by a newly arrived Professor (Sunil Dutt).
Taal (1999) is a story of Mansi(Aishwarya Rai) daughter of a poor spiritual singer named Tara Babu (Alok Nath). meets Vikrant Kapoor (Anil Kapoor), a successful and famous music producer/director, who happens to be a fan of Tara Babu's work. With the encouragement of her uncle Prabha, she signs a three-year contract with Vikrant, and Mansi performs dance numbers and remixes of Tara Babu's songs as well as some of Vikrant's productions. She wins awards and becomes a sensation in India. In the meantime, Vikrant starts to fall in love with Mansi.