Harsha (director)


A. Harsha is a choreographer and director who works with Kannada cinemas. Harsha has choreographed many popular songs for stars. He is known for his creativity in his choreography which, brings colour to the songs. He is known for songs in his movies as a director.

Early life

Harsha was born in Bangalore and, son of Poornima Ashok and T Ashok. He studied at Sri Kumaran Children’s Home and Holy Saint English School. He did his Automobile diploma in Oxford College, Bangalore. He had passion for dancing since childhood and lot of support from his parents. His talent was recognized on a stage show by a film star and was offered to choreograph in movies.

Career

Dancer, choreographer and director, A. Harsha started his career as a stage dancer and choreographer with his own team named Xtremers. He has performed more than 500 stage shows and has choreographed for more than 100 movies crossing more than 300 songs. He acted in movie Kashi from Village, as brother of Kichha Sudeep.. Harsha managed the entire event and choreographed the audio launch function of Nikhil Kumar’s debut film, Jaguar..

Choreographer

Harsha debuted in KFI as a choreographer for the movie Ranga S.S.L.C in 2004. Harsha earned a lot of recognition when he choreographed the songs for Mungaaru Male. He has since choreographed for many popular movies, including Meravanige and Moggina Manasu, Rishi, Taj Mahal, Only Vishnuvardhana.
His choreography for the song 'Karabbu' in Dhruva Sarja's upcoming film Pogaru was released on April 2, 2020. It was panned for glorifying and promoting misogyny

Director

Harsha made his directorial debut with Geleya in 2007, starring Prajwal Devraj and Tarun. involving the underworld. Harsha was appreciated for the freshness of the film, its making and was average at Box Office.
Harsha took up direction again with Birugaali in 2009, this time including Chetan of Aa Dinagalu fame and casting his wife - Sitara Vaidya - again after Geleya.. This movie opened to poor reviews despite melodious songs.
Harsha's 2012 film was Chingari starring Darshan was a remake of english movie Taken_.
His 2013 film Bhajarangi featuring Shivarajkumar was a huge success at the box-office.. He followed it up with similar script and same cast in Vajrakaya, which released in 2015 and was an average hit.
Released in 2016, Jai Maruti 800 was panned by critics for following same storyline as Bhajarangi or Vajrakaya. As per Deccan Chronicle, "Anyone who has so far seen this director's previous 'commercial' hits 'Bhajarangi' and 'Vajrakaya' can easily predict what 'Jai Maruti 800' is all about. With no creative mind set, and banking heavily upon his narrative style from the previous 'commercially' successful films and off course leaving it to his favourite God - the ingredients remains the same but packed with a new label - comedy."
In 2017, Harsha announced Kapicheshte starring his assistant Mohan, but the movie was never completed after initial shoots.
Harsha followed with two remakes Anjani Putra, which received mixed reviews even with Puneet Rajkumar in lead, and Seetharama Kalyana, which was a flop.
On October 2017, Harsha announced "Raana" with Yash amidst much fanfare. But Yash was not too happy with the script that Harsha had presented to him. Sources add that when Harsha presented the actor with the complete script, he wasn’t too happy and had reportedly told the director to fine-tune it to meet his approval standards. Further, with the director’s track record not being up to scratch, Yash’s well-wishers reportedly advised him to put Raana in cold storage for the time being.. Harsha replaced Yash with Shivrajkumar in the movie and eventually, renamed the movie as "Bhajarangi 2"

Filmography

As director

Denotes films that have not yet been released

YearFilmCastNotes
2007GeleyaPrajwal Devaraj, Tarun Chandra, Kirat Bhattal
2009BirugaaliChethan Kumar, Sithara Vaidya
2012ChingaariDarshan, Deepika KamaiahInspired by movie Taken
2013BhajarangiShiva Rajkumar, Aindrita Ray
2015VajrakayaShiva Rajkumar, Nabha Natesh, Karunya Ram
2016Jai Maruthi 800Sharan, Sruthi Hariharan, Shubha Poonja
2017Anjani PutraPuneeth Rajkumar, Rashmika Mandanna, Ramya KrishnanRemake of Tamil film Poojai
2019Seetharama KalyanaNikhil Gowda, Rachita Ram, Madhoo, R. SarathkumarRemake of Telugu film Rarandoi Veduka Chudham
2020Bhajarangi 2 Shiva Raj kumar, Bhavana MenonFilming

Partial choreography