Danish Bhandara is a professional dancer, actress, choreographer & teacher. She has over 12 yrs of training in Kathak (a Classical Indian dance form), Bollywood dance, & Raqs Sharqi (Belly dance).  In 2017 she graduated from UCLA Summa Cum Laude with a BA in World Arts & Cultures, emphasis in Dance. At UCLA she was part of the Visual & Performing Arts Education Program where she had the opportunity to teach in the LAUSD. Prior to that she earned an Associate in Arts degree in Dance as well as a scholarship for academic excellence in the field from Irvine Valley College. She also studied Theater Arts at IVC and performed in many musicals & plays. Danish has been working with Blue 13 Dance Company since 2018 & has been Dance Captain for the Disney Festival of Holidays since 2022. It’s been her privilege to perform with Blue at Disney California Adventure & Disney’s Animal Kingdom parks and at the Hollywood Bowl for renowned composer A.R. Rahman’s concert. Danish is also a teaching artist for The Dancing Storytellers, which provides South Asian Dance education & entertainment across Southern CA via the Segerstrom Center for the Arts and The Music Center of LA. Some of her notable work includes dancing LIVE on KTLA 5’s Morning News, dancing in pop stars’ Latto & Anne Marie’s music video I Just Called , for the launch of Netflix series: We Speak Dance, and choreographing for the play West Bollywood written by Aruna Harjani, directed by Kiff Scholl . As a South Asian performing artist & educator Danish cares deeply about authentic representation, equity, eradicating racism & increasing access to multicultural arts education. She hopes to continue to help these causes through her work.