Artist Manish holds Dance close to his heart. He is someone who chased his dreams even under a dearth of resources.

Manish Kumar is the owner of a dance academy called Contemporary Dance Classes.

He belongs to Gaya and is currently residing in Delhi. His dance journey started way back in his 6th standard when he used to witness his schoolmates perform stunts and dance to the beats of a rocking song. Inspired by them, Manish befriended those dancers and started performing at annual functions. To date, Manish has participated in seven competitions bagging the first prize in all of them.

Talking about challenges, Manish shares that it has not been a smooth journey for him owing to financial problems and no support from his family members. To make ends meet, Manish started doing a job to pay for his rent, food, as well as dance classes. To his amazement, he got a dance mentor who trained him for free indirectly solving half of his problems.

Thereafter, he auditioned for Dance Works, where he got selected and luckily was given a chance at a discounted price owing to his financial condition. Manish says that without facing struggles, one cannot achieve anything in life. Adding to it, he shares that he even worked as a labourer to chase his dreams and meet his family responsibilities.

Talking about the pandemic, Manish says it was a difficult experience for an artist like him who had to stop his dance classes owing to restrictions. He shares that during COVID, the newcomers in the dance field conducted dance classes online which brought the market down. Manish laments the fact that rich dance trainers open their dance classes and hire a trainer to teach whose efforts and name go unnoticed. He adds that corona made him question his dance profession and his abilities to succeed in it.

Manish considers Michael Dameski, an Australian dancer, as his role model. He laments the fact that in India, artists are not much valued as compared to abroad.

If Manish could go back in a Time Machine, he would get back to his poverty days wherein he stayed patient even in troublesome situations.

He advises aspiring dancers to be patient, work hard and be ready to face struggles to make their names in the dance industry.