The independent music scene has gotten so much bigger and better: 'Sajri' star Lauren Gottlieb

New Delhi, Sep 22 (PTI) American actor-dancer Lauren Gottlieb, who recently starred in the music video of Gurdeep Mehndi's song "Sajri", says the Indian music space has evolved a lot since she first came to India for the 2013 film "ABCD: Any Body Can Dance".

Gottlieb shot to fame as a contestant on American dance reality show "So You Think You Can Dance" and also featured in the Remo D'Souza-directed "ABCD" sequel. Her other movie credits include "Welcome 2 Karachi" and Punjabi film "Ambarsariya".

The actor said when she first started coming to India to perform, it was mostly film songs.

"The independent music scene has gotten so much bigger and better through the years. Now we see massive stage productions and global tours from Indian artists and it's incredible. I am able to not just be that dancer that comes in and does her steps and shoots, I'm now able to put my technicality, my experience and my art into the choreography, the direction, the editing, the whole marketing plan and stuff," the 37-year-old told PTI.

Gottlieb said she immediately agreed for a collaboration when she heard the music of Mehdi's "Sajri".

"It was just one of those songs that I started listening to after waking up and I was like this is something different. I was like 'Who is singing it? Oh Gurdeep Mehendi, Daler Mehendi's son, Mika Singh's nephew?' I was like it's a musically-genius family and I loved Gurdeep's other songs, so it was kind of one of those quick things... Once I said yes, I think I was on a plane like two or three days later," she said.

Gottlieb, who now lives in London with her family, was also part of the official OST of Netflix's "The Royals" where she grooves to the song "Who Rules the World", a song created by Anish Mathew, Sukriti Bhardwaj and Harsh Upadhyay. "When I heard 'Who Rules The World' I was like, this is international and very cool... I could tell by the sound, the singers were maybe new, and not like old time people that we've heard a lot before," she said.

Gottlieb said she is in talks to star in both Hindi and Punjabi movies but her goal is to keep working in music video space "I just love this space so I just want to keep doing bigger and better music video shoots, because it's like my favourite thing. But I still want that solo female song as I feel like I usually am dancing with a gentleman. And now I want to stand in front of the camera and fully own being there," she said. PTI SMR SMR BK BK