Choreographer celebrates COVID-19 vaccine with joyful dance

Happy feet are apparently the best side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine. 

Shaking it in celebration of getting the shot, choreographer Gurdeep Pandher’s traditional Indian dance video is spreading good vibrations up and down social media timelines. 

“Yesterday evening I received my Covid-19 vaccine,” Pandher tweeted Tuesday alongside a clip of him rhythmically jumping, kicking and clapping to the Indian drums.  

“Then I went to a frozen lake to dance Bhangra on it for joy, hope and positivity, which I’m forwarding across Canada and beyond for everyone’s health and wellbeing,” he wrote.

In only a few hours, Pandher’s poppin’ positivity post has garnered more than 680,000 views across all his social media platforms. 

The bhangra is a ceremonial Punjabi dance typically performed by Sikh and Muslim men to celebrate the spring harvest festival Baisakhi in South Asia. 

Pandher, a native of India now living in northwest Canada, tours the snowy grounds of his adopted homeland dancing the bhangra and sharing videos of his performances on Twitter, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. 

“When people dance bhangra, they just feel happy,” Pandher recently explained to British talk show host Lorraine Kelly. “Bhangra is a dance of joy, or happiness, for people to express their happiness and their gratitude as well.”

Pandher fans everywhere are currently going keyboard crazy, thanking him for his uplifting vaccination gyrations. 

“Every single time I see Gurdeep. Just can’t help [but smile],” one digital dance lover tweeted, adding emoji smiley faces for emphasis. 

“Okay now I must Twitter follow you because this video is pure joy. So glad you got vaccinated and may it bring many many more dances,” another of Pandher’s cyber-cheerers wrote. 

Since the vaccine’s rollout at the top of the year, only 1.9 percent of Canadians have been fully vaccinated, according to worldwide COVID-19 vaccination database GobalEpidemics. 

And although he’s only received the first of the two-shot Moderna immunization shots Monday, Pandher expressed his optimism for the shot to CBC Radio Tuesday. 

“I feel happy that [the vaccine] is about to give hope to people that things are going to be great in future.”