Rachana Joshi

Artist

Rachana Josh i is an independent dance artist based in Tkaronto. She completed her Bharatanatyam arangetram under the tutelage of Lata Pada in 2017 and is currently a company dancer and teacher at Sampradaya Dance Centre. She has performed in several of the company’s productions, including Nirvana by Parshwanath Upadhye and, most recently, Sankhya . Rachana graduated with honours from York University’s BFA program in Dance in 2019, where she trained in Western contemporary and modern technique such as Limon and Graham.

In 2023, she was invited to learn alongside UK-based Seeta Patel Dance during their rehearsals for Rite of Spring , deepening her inquiry into the evolution of Bharatanatyam within diasporic and intercultural spaces. She has trained in Padmini Chettur’s PRANA Textbook workshop with Anandam Dance Theatre and most recently at Sampradaya Dance Academy’s Summer Intensive with the renowned Smt. Priyadarshini Govind. Rachana is also a company dancer with Nova Dance, where she performed and served as rehearsal assistant in the touring productions Decoded Dance (2024) and Svaha! (2023).

As a choreographer, Rachana is interested in the foundational pillars of Bharatanatyam—its geometry, rhythmic structure, coordination, and storytelling. Her work tests the durability of these frameworks, asking what emerges when their logic is altered, disrupted, or reassembled. Indian mythology and philosophical concepts are central to her research. She is drawn to the role of dance as a bridge between the spiritual and the everyday, and reimagines ritual forms and ancient narratives as tools for contemporary expression.

Rachana is the artistic director of Kala Dance Collective, an organization committed to amplifying the voices of diasporic Bharatanatyam dancers. The collective runs Prep + Practice , a free, community-driven training series that supports Toronto-based dancers in sustaining and deepening their practice. She continues to expand her movement vocabulary by training in floorwork, house, k-pop and Bollywood technique, nurturing a diverse and joyful movement identity.