Our Team & Mission

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I started at Nupoor in 2008 as a student, and returned as a choreographer and an instructor from 2017 to 2019. 

It was one of the most enriching experiences of my dance career as I learned so much working with the students of Nupoor Dances as well as with the Artistic Director Sonal Sanghvi.

During my tenure as a student and as an instructor, I was able to deepen my understanding of dance technique, worked with a large genre of music, learned to incorporate elements of formation and transitions into my choreography, and so much more.

Nupoor Dances and Sonal Sanghvi continue to play a pivotal role in my dance journey and I look forward to seeing what the future holds!

I’ve been a part of the Nupoor Family since birth! ! Growing up as the son of Sonal Sanghvi, I attended Nupoor classes from a very young age, and dance quickly became my passion, just like my Mom :) Nupoor is a unique place because not only did it allow me to build a solid dance foundation and performance skills, but it gave me a place to built lasting relationships with both students and instructors that I still hold close to me today. Nupoor really became my family, and I’m so thankful to have had that experience.


My love for dance inspired me to lead my own Bollywood Dance Team, UC Berkeley Azaad, as captain, choreographer, and lead when I went to college. The foundational skills I learned from Nupoor also allowed me to branch out beyond Bollywood onto an Urban/Hip Hop Dance team called Truelement at Cal.


After graduating college, I continue to work on making my dance skills more versatile, and also joined an All-Boys Bollywood/Fusion dance team called Darzana. I also come back as an instructor to Nupoor whenever I can to teach workshops/classes. It’s safe to say that I’m a bit obsessed with dance and it wouldn’t have happened without the foundation I built and the relationships I built as a part of Nupoor Dances! 

I joined Nupoor Dances when I was 8 years old, and the rest is history! Growing up with Nupoor, dance became such a strong passion of mine that I didn’t want to stop when I had to leave for college. 

After graduating high school in 2013, I attended UCSC, where I founded Santa Cruz’s very first Hindi-Fusion Bollywood Dance team, UCSC Kahaani! I was lead captain & choreographer for 3 years, and I loved every moment of it. After graduating college, I moved back home to Dublin, CA and became an instructor at Nupoor, which was a full circle moment for me!

I also currently have a full-time job at DocuSign in Sales Operations. Sonal Aunty & Nupoor Dances has shaped me into the dancer, choreographer, and instructor I am today, and I am forever grateful for my Nupoor Family.

I remember being enrolled into Sonal aunty’s studio in third grade as a way for my mother to burn the extra energy I had left after basketball practice. What started off as a way to kill time quickly turned into my favorite part of every week until I graduated high school. I cannot thank Sonal aunty enough for growing my love for dance, a passion I kept with me as my main outlet for engineering stress all throughout college. It was almost solely because of what I learned at Nupoor dances that I was able to captain my collegiate bollywood dance team at Penn State (that hadn’t competed)to getting into and placing at the most competitive national competitions in the circuit. At a competition after winning an award for best male lead I remember inherently needing to complete a ritual motion that we always used to do at Nupoor after every practice as my time with Sonal aunty felt like an extension of any achievement I had in dance.

Not only did I gain a very close knit family at Nupoor, I also gained a family and network of individuals who share my passion for the artform that have helped me through college and well into my career in tech. I have taught hip hop workshops the past couple years as an instructor part time between different dance teams and while I’m sure my teammates and I have come a long way since learning to pop and lock at 9 years old our time at Sonal aunty’s studio will always be one of the most cherished and positively impactful periods of our lifetimes.

My name is Raj, and I was a dancer at Nupoor from elementary school to my senior year of high school. My time with the Nupoor family has made me more passionate and confident about dancing, and I enjoyed all of the practices, showcases, and competitions I was a part of with the team.

Because of Nupoor, I continued to dance after high school as well. I spent a few years on both the Bollywood and Raas dance teams at Duke University. I credit Nupoor for providing me an opportunity to explore my interests further in college!