Burnaby Bollywood dancer Tahira Karmali is helping to spread the love, doing what she loves.
A student and teacher with dance company Shiamak Davar International, Karmali is performing around the Lower Mainland this month as part of a community outreach initiative.
Dance for Good is a program that brings Bollywood dancers to community centres to share their talents for a good cause.
In Burnaby, Karmali and the rest of the Shiamak Dance Team will perform on March 23 at St. Michael's Centre hospice.
"It's a really kind of a meaningful thing because it's spreading the joy of dance and kind of healing through dance," she said. "...We hope they have a lot of fun and that we can bring a smile to their faces."
Dance for Good is an off shoot of the dance school's Victory Arts Foundation, a non-profit created in 2004, "to bring joy to the underprivileged and persons living with developmental and physical disabilities," according to a press release.
"Our aim is to share the joy of dance, to empower the performers, to encourage the spririt of volunteerism and to bring communities together through music and the performing arts," said Shiamak Davar, founder and artistic director of Shiamak Davar International, in the release.
The Dance for Good series made its first stop at the GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre in Vancouver, on March 12, which Karmali said went over very well with patients who saw the performance.
"All the patients there, they really enjoyed it and learned some dance moves, so it was really good," she said.
Over the next few weeks, the Bollywood dancers will also take their show to a Downtown Eastside women's shelter, the B.C. Children's Hospital Sunny Hill Health Centre and the Vancouver Convention Centre for the Canucks Autism Network's 2013 Family Festival.
A free public performance of Dance for Good will also be held at the Capilano Mall in North Vancouver on March 23 at noon, which will showcase the dance team's high-energy routine, and offer the public a chance to participate and learn some classic Bollywood dance moves.
For more information visit www.shiamak.com.
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