World Dance Day 2025: How Kathak Healed Physical, Mental & Emotional Wounds?

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Dance is not only an artform but also a powerful therapy, helping to keep you healthy. On the eve of World Dance Day, Free Press talked with four noted classical dancers in the city to know how dance helped them to overcome their serious health complications.

Dance keeps me alive

V Anuradha Singh has a congenital kidney problem, making her renal system prone to frequent infections and keeping her blood pressure permanently raised. But that has not stopped her from performing on stage at least three times every month and teaching kathak. She performs chakkars at the rate of 140 per minute.

“Today if I am alive and am talking with you, it is solely due to dance,” she says, adding that dance helps her to keep her BP under control. “Dance is an extremely vigorous exercise which makes you sweat profusely. Sweating helps me get rid of salt and lowers my BP. It also ensures that I don’t become diabetic.” she added.

New lease of life

Rakhi Dubey met with a near-fatal accident in 2007, leaving bones of her hands and feet shattered. Four surgeries followed. Plates and rods were inserted into her limbs and she had to remain bed-ridden for three years.

“I was completely broken, both physically and mentally,” she recalls. Slowly, she resumed dancing, despite doctors asking her not to. “Kathak helped me to recover. It has given a new life to me. Now, I practice every day and perform in shows. Not only I perform solo but I also teach dance to many,” she added.

Off painkillers

Swati Sanjay Pillai developed gout in her big toe due to accumulation of uric acid in the body when she was a teenager. The problem grew with age. It became difficult to walk. Even lifting a foot became impossible. She was put on painkillers and had to take Vitamin D injections.

She was perpetually drowsy, spending most of her time lying down. “Then, I decided to resume dance against the advice of my doctors. It helped me immensely.

My pain disappeared and now I don’t have to take any medicines,” she says, adding that she runs Kathak Institute Navdha Kathakalay, which provides free Kathak education to poor children.

‘Dance till I drop’

Rakhi Paliwal lost her kidney to cancer in 2015. Her other kidney was also not healthy. She slid into deep depression. Then, in 2018, she joined a kathak academy.

“Dance motivated me to live. It boosted my inner strength. Due to kidney problem, I don't have much strength left in my body. But I dance everyday, taking breaks whenever I feel tired,” she said.

Rakhi says that dance has given her the strength to fight. She has started her own dance academy called Kala Spandan. “I like spreading happiness,” she added.