Dimapur: Dimapur resident Sunepsangla is emerging as the first professional ballerina from Nagaland, a dream which she had been seeing ever since she was five-year-old.

At 17, Sunepsangla has been selected at the National Theatre Ballet School Melbourne, Australia following rounds of auditions, reports The Morung Express.

The young ballerina started learning ballet at the age 5 at Hope Centre for Excellence, Dimapur from 2011 to 2018 where she was awarded with the best ballet performance from 2011-2018. In 2019, she entered the Great Indian Ballet Competition (GIBC) Mumbai where she won the first position in the Classical Solo youth category.

Sunepsangla further went on to win 2nd in Classical Solo at the GIBC 2020 (virtual due to pandemic) and People’s Choice Award GIBC 2020. In 2022, she was awarded the winner in the GIBC Classical Solo 2022 (senior category). She has also earned scholarships to Belgrade, London (Virtual) and Vienna.

Due to a lack of professional classes in Nagaland, she was compelled to move out of the state and pursue private lessons and master classes from Mumbai and Singapore including online lessons from the US.

She cleared the audition for full-time ballet in Youth Ballet Academy Perth and The National Theatre Ballet School, Melbourne where she will be enrolled in the National Theatre Ballet School Melbourne, Australia this year, the news portal reported.

“It’s a mixture of feelings,” says Sunepsangla, “I know it would be a dream come true, something I have worked towards for many years but also bittersweet as I would potentially move away from home.”