Abhishek is a young, passionate, indo-kiwi dancer and performing artist from Auckland, New Zealand. He is currently in Year 12 at Mt Roskill Grammar School. He has had a strong love for the performing arts since the age of 7. His dance journey began when he was 7 years old, from Guru Anuradha Raamkumar who has been guiding him through the art of Bharatanatyam till today, under Nrityabhinaya – Anuradha’s School of Dance. He completed his Arangetram (Debut Solo Graduation Repertoire) in May 2017 under Guru Anuradha Ramkumar. He is also fortunate to have attended training conducted by Dr. Sheela Unnikrishnan of Sridevi Nrityalaya upon which he completed a solo repertoire in the music and dance season in Chennai 2017. In 2018 he won the title of  “The Great New Zealand Dance Masala” a reality dance TV competition on TV3. Abhishek went to the Cleveland Aradhana Bharatanatyam competiion in 2019 where he won first place in the choreography category. He has played lead roles in various dance ballets including Krishna in “Sri Krishna”, Hanuman in “Kamba Ramayanam”, and Karna in “Suryaputra Karna.” He is now continuing expanding his knowledge and skill in this divine art, under the guidance of international dance director, his Guru Shankar Kandasamy from the Temple of Fine Arts Kuala Lumpur. This is a non-profit institution based on the teachings of his holiness Swami Shantanand Saraswathi.

Abhishek’s interest for dance developed further into varying dance styles including Hip Hop, Urban, Lyrical, and Jazz which he has been training with for the past 4 years at The Dance Studio NZ, and through various dance groups and crews at Mt Roskill Grammer School. In 2018 Abhishek was a finalist in the NZAMD Scholarship awards under the Jazz category, and recieved the Raw Motion Dance Scholarship the same year. He is also a part of Momentum Productions NZ, and completed 2 years of pre-professional development, and is now in the professional development class of 2020. Besides dancing, he grew up playing the drums, the base guitar, and the veena. However due to his dance training hours increasing by the months, he was unable to pursue them further, but hopes to re-continue music in the near future.

Abhishek’s dreams lie within pursuing a combination of both the western and traditional disciplines of dance as a career, the next step being to train fulltime in Sydney Australia after finishing highschool.
YADA extends its best wishes to Chi. Abhishek Ravi for continuing the journey of divine arts. YADA is very thankful for his participation as lead role in YADA’s Jagadananda Karaka 2019, YADA’s In Zoom summer series and now in Margazhi Yuva Utsav 2020!