Social media dance sensation visits Manitoba

Once public health restrictions began to ease last year, Pandher packed up his van and began driving across the country, starting on the east coast and making his way west. (Source: Daniel Timmerman, CTV News)

A Canadian social media sensation from the Yukon has reached Manitoba on his cross-country tour of positivity, dance, and education.

It all began during the pandemic, when Gurdeep Pandher started making social media videos from his Yukon cabin demonstrating the art of Bhangra dance. The videos went viral, and Pandher began receiving letters from people across Canada.

He said people were telling him how happy his dancing made them.

"It gave me an understanding that there's lots and lots of sadness in people's lives," said Pandher. "In communities, in the country and beyond. So, I thought I should do something."

Once public health restrictions began to ease last year, Pandher packed up his van and began driving across the country, starting on the east coast and making his way west. He tried to visit as many communities as he could to spread his message of joy, hope, and togetherness.

Pandher has been organizing meet-ups through social media, inviting people to join him in public spaces to dance Bhangra and express themselves.

"People are amazing, they are wonderful," he said. "Wherever I went they met me with happy hearts, they invited me to their places, they gave me food to eat."

He learned the traditional folk dance as a child growing up in Punjab, India. Pandher said dancing has always been a meaningful form of expression for him.

"Whenever I was down and faced challenges in my life, I danced Bhangra to press my reset button, to find my own joy," he said.

"It's a happy dance, it's a positive dance," added Pandher. "And dance and music are a universal language which we all can understand."

Pandher is beginning the Manitoba leg of his tour in Churchill where he'll be hosting a dance event before visiting several northern Manitoba communities.

Later in the week, he will tour several southern Manitoba towns and then return to Winnipeg for a Bhangra dance workshop.

Pandher will be posting updates of his travels online.

He said it's been an incredible journey that has allowed him to see 60 per cent of Canada so far.

"It just makes me happy that through my dance I was able to contribute a small amount of positivity in our country and beyond," he said.