The past couple of years has been pretty stressful for all of us. While physical and mental stress are becoming part of our lives, how does Kuchipudi dance fit into the picture? While it might sound a little strange, this Indian classical dance form is as good and probably better than any excise regime. This is exactly what Dr. Surabhi Lakshmi Sarada, a well-known Kuchipudi dance exponent from Hyderabad, has been experimenting with her students for the past 10 years.

Dr. Surabhi, who also runs the Surabhi Academy of Performing Arts, maintains that though people think of Kuchipudi and Bharatnatyam as complex dance forms, the very dance movements are good in burning calories, improving concentration levels, enhance relaxation and manage physical and emotional stress.

Surabhi Lakshmi has designed various levels of dance movements for different age groups. For the ones below the age group of 30, she has vigorous dance movements. Besides burning calories, the students also get to learn concentration and manage emotional well-being. For older ones, between 30 and 60 years of age, she gives subtle movements. Her main focus here is to keep them relaxed, and over time, weight and mental stress come down.

The dancer, who has won about 65 awards at various levels, keeps the learner’s age, gender, stamina, concentration level, emotional health, fitness levels, and the time they can give to learn dance in mind while preparing her sequences. She says like exercise, dancing too helps in releasing happy hormones and adds that there is no better example to prove this than veteran actor-dancer Hema Malini, who still performs at the age of 72.

Dr. Surabhi also points out various dance movements are similar to yoga and shares that Bharata Muni wrote Natyashastra much before Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Hence, it is widely believed that yoga came out of classical dance forms. Dr. Surabhi performs on various local and international stages and is a theatre artist too, who is quite popular on DD Saptagiri.She also adds that classical dance is not just for women and children and says it’s her endeavor to help people stay through dance.