Today we’d like to introduce you to Divyanka Gupta.
Divyanka, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Like many creatives in our generation, my everyday pursuits can be classified into two categories: scholastic pursuits and my craft.
Born and raised in Colorado, I set out to the east coast to fulfill my academic dreams. It seems as though a future in the medical field was always written in my destiny, so here I am in Boston at MCPHS University enrolled in the Doctor of Pharmacy program and set to graduate in 2020. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to work for some great institutions and companies – Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and Celgene – which have geared me to seek a future career in the pharmaceutical industry in the oncology space.
Although many of my passions lie within the scientific field, I would not be who I am today without my creative half. I started training in Bharatanatyam, an Indian Classical dance form, at the age of 4. I trained for 14 years within which I completed my Arangetram, a solo debut two-hour on-stage performance completed after years of training. Alongside this formal training, I learned and performed in multiple other styles: Sattriya, Bollywood, Kathak, Raas, Ballet, and Hip Hop. Once I came to Boston, I joined Boston University’s Bollywood fusion competitive dance team, Jalwa, where doing my second year, I was one of the lead dancers. Although my days with BU Jalwa have come to an end, I am currently dancing and performing with two teams: Bhangra Theory, an NYC-based Bhangra team, and Samsara, an alumni Bharatanatyam team. While performing with these teams, I have also started my online dance platform concurrently through social media (Youtube, Facebook, Instagram) and started to grow somewhat of a following. Currently, my YouTube channel is doing quite well with 12K+ subscribers and 1.9+ million total views. I hope to keep consistency with my online platform and engage with my audience to spread the joy of Indian dance worldwide.
Up until now, my dance career has been successful and I have reached a point where I am ready to give back to my community. To execute this, my partner, Sonia Rathee, and I are starting Bollywood fusion and Indian Classical fusion dance workshops here in Boston in early October of this year. They are open to anyone, no dance experience necessary and will occur approximately every two weeks. For more details, visit hankaardance.com.
These two paths of my life tend to keep me quite busy, but if I ever have any time, you can catch me out and about looking at the world through my camera. Photography and cinematography have always been a hobby of mine which I recently started to officialize and monetize. As much as I enjoy being on stage, performing, or being in front of the camera, sometimes I like taking a step back and working my creativity behind the camera.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
From what I’ve learned, no endeavor yields a smooth road. Although there have been hurdles along the way, I think they are an extremely important part of the process. I am nowhere near my goals and know multiple obstacles will come my way in the future as well, but I know persistence and hard work will always take you further.
As I’m sure other creatives know, the road to our goals is unpaved. This automatically makes for un-foreseen challenges. One of my main challenges is balancing a healthy lifestyle and working towards my goals. When your days are scheduled to the minute and you’re running out of your apartment to make it to class, then run to work, then run to practice, you naturally forget about your immediate needs. Some days are better than others and I’ve definitely gotten better with balancing a correct diet, working out, mental rest, and work, but more improvement is absolutely needed.
For anyone pursuing any dream of theirs, whether or not it’s along with my work of art or something completely different, I think the best advice I could give is to be cognizant of themselves both independent and dependent of the communities around them. From experience, I think it’s very easy to get lost in your own line of work, concentrate on what you want and what you need, but then one day you wake up and realize you’re so cut off from the world and those around you. Again, balance is key. This will lead you to have time to focus on yourself and your work, while also opening up opportunities to meet people in the same line of work and possible collaborations.
In terms of being female in the industry, this should never be seen as an inhibitory factor. This is a huge topic in our world today, but I believe that if you put in the time and effort, nothing can stop you from harnessing your ambitions.
What should we know about your work? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
As mentioned, I am concurrently a PharmD student and a dancer. I specialize in Bharatnatyam, an Indian classical dance form, along with other Indian and American dance styles.
As a student, creative, and entrepreneur, I am most proud of my recent successes in terms of outreach, both in my community and worldwide through my online platforms. I think hard work will always pay off, and this goes to show that persistence and consistency coupled with effort will eventually bear fruit. I have a long way to go but I am glad I am starting to see small successes.
I hope to serve as an inspiration for any creative, especially to those communities and individuals that are part of any diverse community. My line of work is quite different from other creatives, even other dancers, but if anything I use that as motivation to share my art with the world and you should do the same!
Who do you look up to? How have they inspired you?
As cliche as it may sound, the woman who has inspired me most in my life is my mom. She not only is the reason I started dancing but is the reason I have come so far with it. Any success I achieve is completely her award to take. She is a highly successful woman in a career field which doesn’t have much female representation, especially when she started her career. It would be an injustice to call her a ‘super woman’, she’s so much more than that. I can’t begin to imagine how she manages to have a successful career, raise three children, make time for her goals and those around her, all while having the widest smile on her face. If I can even equate to a percentage of who she is, I’d consider myself successful.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.divyankagupta.com
- Email: divyankacgupta@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/divyanka_gupta/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/divyankaguptaofficial/
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/divyankagupta, www.hankaardance.com
Image Credit:
Sydney Claire, Alissa Lise Wyle, Tobi Makinde, Pivotal Productions, Zeeshan Shabbir, Peter Sohn, Dave and Sonya Photography, Bastian Photography
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