Mahika Sampat – ‘Dancing Through Life’
Mahika Sampat is a tangy blend of dancer, choreographer, and performer, who has got many plaudits under her belt, being a practitioner of the Odissi dance form which she has been studying from the tender age of 4. And not only classical dance, but she is also fluent in many other Western dance forms.
Her head and heart are perfectly aligned; she is a Humanities student whose chosen specialization in Psychology while being a vocal promoter and proponent of “Dance Therapy” that seeks to address psychological and anxiety issues of teenagers through the mode of dancing.
Sampat has been teaching Odissi Dance at the Saksham Bal Vikas Sansthan (a school for underprivileged children) in Sushant Lok, Gurgaon, from the age of 14, with enthusiastic feedback from the kids, who see in her a compassionate teacher. At the ‘Kingdom of Dreams’ in Gurgaon, Mahika had masterfully choreographed the dance performance of a select group of girls from this school which was witnessed by many and earned her a lot of appreciation and goodwill.
In 2018-19, Mahika Sampat along with her teacher and mentor, Shagun Butani, performed at the “West Zone Cultural Center” at Udaipur, to rousing applause. Her talented performances at the launch of the “FabIndia experience centers” at Noida and Lajpat Nagar (Delhi) thrust her firmly in the limelight as a prodigious dancing talent to watch out for.
She has performed for various events such as the Governor’s meet in Mumbai and at the 90th anniversary of India’s one of the oldest museums, the Allahabad Museum.
Sampat also had a brief brush with the tinsel town when she received an offer to act in a Bollywood movie, on the strength of her dancing prowess. However, there were some scenes she was not comfortable with, and gracefully declined the offer.
In 2019-20, Mahika Sampat assisted and performed with her Guru, Shagun Butani in a prestigious project named ‘Fluid Stones’ which was funded and promoted by the CSR wing of Interglobe. Just before the lockdown, in February-March 2020, she showed off her skills with dance performances in Mumbai, the Allahabad Museum, the National Museum (Delhi), and also the Sunder Nursery Heritage Site in New Delhi. Her performances clearly spelled out her love and dedication towards the Classical dance form and marked her out as a dancer to watch out for in the future as well.
Mahika Sampat is surely dancing through life with an aim to become a renowned classical dance choreographer, all the while helping and uplifting people with the principles of dance therapy.
