For Abhinav Anand, classical Indian dance is more than a hobby. It’s his passion. 

“There's a moment on stage when you become the character,” Anand said. “You're not yourself anymore. And at that moment, the audience doesn't exist. You don't exist.” 

Anand’s performance this spring was widely anticipated by his family and friends at his temple in Farmington Hills, Michigan. But getting to this level of comfort in his art has been a journey.

Anand performed his original choreography in the dance style Bharatanatyam, a traditional South Indian classical dance historically used for temple worship. Today, dancers use this style to interpret and reenact stories from Hindu mythology.

His performance represented the sun god, or the eternal witness, driving his celestial chariot across the sky, drawn by seven majestic horses. The seven horses represent the seven colors of the rainbow, and the seven poetic meters.  

“There is a level of relatability,” he said. “If this dance form has been relevant for the past 2000 years, it will be relevant for the next 2000 years.”

Instead of seeking sunshine during his spring break, Anand was in the dance studio, preparing for this performance for the Shivaratri festival. 

“I'm not only a dancer,” he said. “I have to be a linguist. I also have to be a historical researcher, and I need to know mythology. When you say you're a dancer, you're also a musician. You're also a rhythmist; you're also an actor.” 

Anand discovered his love for classical Indian dance at six years old and has been practicing the art form ever since.

Today Anand has performed internationally, having danced at the Indian conservatory of Paris and UNESCO. He is still often found in the dance studio, when he’s not in the lab studying biochemistry at MSU and preparing to go to medical school.

While the story behind his dance was inspired by ancient texts, Anand still interprets the poetry with modern-day contexts, drawing from his studies on biochemistry. 

The lyrics describe the sun as a powerful destroyer of all disease and harms in the world, a close comparison to UV rays, Anand explained. The Sanskrit texts also say the sun god is a remover of all worries and all anxieties. “Depression is also known to be caused by a lack of vitamin D,” he said.

Anand works closely with live musicians who play while he dances. He’s performed with many of them for years. 

Deekshitha Balaji, a close friend who played the violin for Anand’s performance, praised his ability to make the performance relatable. “It’s cool to see how something that ancient is still connected to today’s world,” she said. 

As a musician, Balaji said, her role in the performance is to complement the emotions expressed by the dancer.  

Embracing the characters of the dance is one of the most important aspects of Bharatanatyam. 

“I need to understand each myth because, at the end of the day, those are actual people I’m personifying,” Anand said.

Getting into character is one of the most difficult aspects of Anand's dancing, especially because Bharatanatyam is traditionally performed by women. In the past, Anand has been driven to quit dancing because of bullying and his peers calling him “gay” for participating in traditionally feminine activities. 

“It's really, really tough being a guy and dancing,” he said. “When I'm portraying a woman, it's extremely feminine characteristics. When I'm doing a man, I'm depicting a man in extreme masculine characteristics. You're just portraying a character.” 

“It takes a great amount of security in being a man in order to be feminine on stage,” he said.

Although struggling with his identity has been part of Anand’s dancing journey, his passion for the art keeps bringing him back. 

“It's such a huge journey and you will always feel insecure about it, but it's the love for dance that carries you,” he said. 

Anand said that coming from a traditional family meant he didn’t always grow up with the most support for his art. Over the years as he has become more serious about his dancing, his family has come around and are now his biggest supporters. 

“He is a strong man for sure,” Anu Iyengar said. Iyengar is a family friend of Anand's parents, and he refers to her as his auntie. 

“It's nice to see him as a male dancer,” Iyengar said. “I wish him all the success for his future endeavors. It's amazing.” 

Anand said that he couldn’t do it without the unconditional love and support he gets from his family and friends. 

“Honestly, it's so nice to see someone who's different from all the other people,” Balaji said. “He's overcoming all those battles and all those challenges and still continuing to be such an amazing artist and dancer. It just makes me really proud of him.” 

Dancing is one of the biggest ways Anand connects with himself and his identity. 

“It helps me take my mind off of all of my anxiety and worries and insecurities. All of those just go away in an instant,” he said. “That moment of seeing the connection with yourself on such an intimate and deep level. It's so therapeutic. Nothing can come close to dance.”