Biography

Suruchi Saxena has been dancing Kathak for as long as she can remember, and teaching it for over a decade. She founded Sama School of Kathak to create the kind of learning environment she had always believed in: one where classical rigour and personal warmth go hand in hand, where students are genuinely known as individuals, and where the tradition of Kathak is passed on with the care and depth it deserves.

Suruchi holds a Kathak Visharad — the highest level of classical dance diploma — from Prayag Sangeet Samiti, Allahabad, and is a graduate in Kathak from Bharati Vidyapeeth, Pune. She is a senior disciple of Guru Alpana Sengupta MBE, one of the most distinguished Kathak artists in the United Kingdom, and continues her own advanced study under Guru Amruta Paranjpe, a highly regarded classical exponent based in Pune, India. Her training is ongoing — she believes that a teacher who stops learning soon stops growing.

Beyond her own practice, Suruchi serves as faculty member and examiner with PRSSV Institute of Performing Arts and Heritage, the leading UK examination board for Indian classical music and dance. In this capacity she contributes to the development and assessment of Kathak education across Britain, working with students at grade and diploma level. It is a role she takes seriously: she knows what examiners look for, and she brings that understanding directly into every class she teaches.

She has performed extensively across the United Kingdom, Germany, and India, appearing at cultural festivals, concert venues, and community events. Performance has always been as important to her as teaching — she believes you cannot truly understand Kathak without the experience of dancing it for an audience.

Teaching Philosophy

"Kathak is not simply a sequence of steps. It is a language — one that took centuries to develop, with its own grammar, its own poetry, its own silences. What I want for every student, whether they have just discovered it or have been dancing for years, is to feel that language becoming their own. That means building strong foundations: understanding the rhythm, feeling the music, knowing where every movement comes from and why. And then, once those foundations are there, having the freedom to express something genuine within them."

— Suruchi Saxena, Founder, Sama School of Kathak