Anuja Rajendra is Creator and CEO of BollyFit, the Fitness through Dance sensation illuminating America. BollyFit synthesizes the artistic elements of Indian classical, folk and Bollywood dance styles in a dynamic dance experience. A spiritual thread is woven in and participants increase presence through dance. A loyal Michigander, success to Anuja is eliciting the dormant dancer within every body in her home state and beyond and helping Americans reach the top of the charts in the "healthiest country" category for both physical and spiritual well-being!

Anuja is an accomplished dancer, innovative choreographer and magnetic motivational speaker. Students come to BollyFit's flagship Ann Arbor classes from all over the world. To meet growing demand and make the program accessible to the 'dancer within each body', Anuja developed the BollyFit Guide for Guides TM program to certify instructors in the U.S.A. to teach classes featuring her proprietary content and choreography.

Anuja's private clients include 2010 Olympic Silver Medalists, Meryl Davis and Charlie White. Together with their coaches, Anuja choreographed the first-of-its-kind 'Indian Dance on Ice' that helped Davis and White win Gold at the 2009-2010 U.S. Nationals, Four Continents, Rostelecom Cup and Grand Prix Events, capping the season with a Silver Medal at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver! This dance was selected to be featured dance in the 2010 Smucker's on Ice Tour is continues to be performed nationwide by Meryl and Charlie!

Anuja, along with her two sisters, studied Bharat Natyam, a classical Indian dance style that is over 4000 years old, Bollywood and Bhangra dance styles. They performed professionally as "The Rajendra Sisters" throughout the United States, Canada and India. Anuja earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial and Operations Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration, both from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Although she recalls missing a few classes to dance and does not recommend this practice, she excelled in the corporate, non-profit and technology start-up sectors.

Anuja's sister, Rachana, was tragically killed in an automobile accident and Anuja stopped dancing for over ten years. After having two children 18 months apart and gaining 60 and 45 pounds during the respective pregnancies, she wanted to be healthy again without the dread typically associated with exercise. She found herself turning on music and dancing again with her children. Along the way, the weight shed and a joy that was shielded for years emanated from within. Friends asked her to share the secret, and BollyFit was born.

Anuja and her husband live in Ann Arbor, Michigan with their dancing buddies, two smiling sons.

BollyFit Guide - Upahvan

Upahvan is a junior studying Anthropology and Pre-Medicine at the University of Michigan.  She has been dancing Bharat Natyam and Bhangra since childhood and has also been trained in ballet, jazz, modern-contemporary, and hip hop with experience in other cultural dances such as African tribal, street breakdancing, latin dancing (cumbia, bachata, merengue, and salsa), Raas and Bollywood, interpretive, and Greek and Croatian folk dances.  She is energized to be a BollyFit Guide and share an appreciation and drive for a healthier life style, a positive attitude, and Indian culture with the community. As co-captain of the top-ranked Michigan Bhangra Team, she travels nationwide to compete with collegiate and independent teams in cities, consistently taking 1st or 2nd place. Upahvan believes that with the proper encouragement, each individual can pick up the rhythm of a song, dance freely to their best ability, and enjoy fitness along the way - and that BollyFit is the perfect path to do this!

Upahvans passion for dance is indescribable.  She turns to dance in both times of sadness and happiness as a way to brighten the spirits and release tension, and feels that the right fitness environment can do this for anyone.  Upahvan is excited to promote well-being, mental happiness, and fitness through BollyFit because of its ability to revitalize and uplift the soul while getting the heart pumping!

BollyFit Guide - Sanjay

Sanjay is a senior at the University of Michigan where he studies Neuroscience and Pre-Dentistry. Dance has been ingrained within him as long as he can remember - he has been on stage at his community’s annual Diwali show ever since he was 5.  He learned Bhangra from his cousins when he was growing up, and has been hooked on it ever since! As co-captain of the Michigan Bhangra team, he has extensive experience competing and dancing around the country, consistently taking 1st or 2nd place.

Sanjay hopes to inspire students in BollyFit and BollyFit Boys Bhangra to reveal their rhythmic talent through dance and music.  He believes BollyFit is a great way for adults and kids alike to feel great about themselves both physically and mentally - and that besides providing fitness through dance, BollyFit students should connect and make friendships through the class experience. His goal is to help students achieve confidence, self-pride, and health through the energetic experiences in BollyFit.

BollyFit Guide - Suman

Suman was introduced to BollyFit Creator, Anuja Rajendra, by Atasi, a BollyFit Guide. Atasi knew of the love Suman has for dance and thought she would fit in well at BollyFit! When Suman attended one of Anujas classes, she knew that this was the place for her.  She believes that “BollyFit is the perfect place to share a love of fitness, wellness and dance with others.  I hope to inspire everyone to dance around their house, dance inside their hearts, and dance with a huge smile while we sweat!”

BollyFit Guide - Renu

From a young age, Renu’s enthusiasm and passion for dance led her parents to enroll her in ballet classes. The technique and discipline provided a solid foundation to her dance training, but she was still restless for more energetic and compelling styles of dance. Curious and passionate, Renu spent years studying Ballet, Modern, Jazz, Hip hop, B-girl technique, Tap, African, Haitian, Salsa, Kathak and Bharatanatyam from some of the world’s foremost dancers, as well as aerial silk & lyra, yoga and Pilates. It was only after searching for fulfillment in studying and choreographing these many and varied global styles of movement, that she re-discovered a dance form linked to her own roots, which encapsulated all the elements she loved about dancing: Bollywood.

On a visit home to India, Renu discovered Bollywood movies and the cornerstone of the Indian film style—bollywood dancing. Stylistically, that was the turning point for Renu. Bollywood dance provided the contagious energy, expressive beauty, and unparalleled passion and spirit she’d been searching for in all her years of dance training.

Following that visit, Renu began performing with New York City’s Bollywood Axion through 2005, and worked to grow Bollywood Axion, developing a role as Company Manager and eventually as teaching associate. Following a move to Denver, Renu founded Denver and Boulder’s first and largest Bollywood, Bhangra, and indian-fusion dance studio, with the only adult performing company in the region. In 2010, Renu sought to return to her own roots, in Michigan, which brought her to the BollyFit family. Coming home to Michigan was both symbolic and literal, in many ways--bringing Renu back to her birthplace and community of friends and family--where she could share her gifts of dance and culture, as well as parlaying culture into an exuberant dance-fitness experience, accessible and enjoyable to everyone. BollyFit is the PerfectFit, and Renu is overjoyed to come home, with her daughter, Rithika, a BollyFit Kid.

Renu is a member of the Lululemon Athletica R&D team, and has maintained the exclusive-endorser relationship between BollyFit and NYX Cosmetics. She is a certified Zumba and ZumbAtomic instructor, who thrills to bring bollywood and bhangra into her Caribbean, African and Latin dance choreography. Up With People is currently touring Renu’s choreography for “Jai Ho” as the showstopper finale of their international tour, and her master classes, workshops, and choreography remain in high-demand, regionally and nationwide. Renu’s conservatory study was intensively developed for many years at the world-renowned Interlochen Center for the Arts and she was a merit-based scholarship recipient at Interlochen, multiple and consecutive years.

With over 30 years of dance training, performance, and teaching experience, Renu’s bi-cultural upbringing and movement education gives her a unique ability to teach the Indian styles of dance in language that non-Indian students can understand. “Everyone can dance, it just takes a patient and compassionate teacher, who can break down each dance step, to the point where students will understand the simplicity at the core of even the most counter-intuitive step, and feel natural in their movements, that is when we move with joy and presence.” she says, adding, “When we dance, we are most alive.”

BollyFit Kids Guide - Holly

As the Director of BollyFit KIDS, Holly comes to BollyFit with a long history of teaching and love of helping others learn. She has a Masters degree in Literature from Eastern Michigan University and nine years of classroom experience as a High School English teacher.  Holly has a unique approach to teaching that she brings with her as a BollyFit Kids Guide. She sees her role as a facilitator guiding students towards their own ideas and interpretations rather than as a teacher feeding them the answers.  That is, she helps each young student find the ‘dancer within’ himself or herself.

Holly enjoys being physically active. She was introduced to dance at the age of four when she began taking ballet classes. She has also played competitive team sports including basketball, floor hockey, volleyball, and ran track. In college, Holly practically lived at the fitness center where she taught aerobics and a fitness class for senior citizens.  As an adult, she always enjoyed fitness classes of any kind, and also played on a soccer league.  But when she discovered BollyFit last year and met Anuja Rajendra, its creator, Holly knew she was lucky enough to dance into something really special. Holly is hooked on BollyFit! She hasn’t stopped taking class since the day she began! In fact, Holly loves BollyFit so much that she worked with Anuja to adapt BollyFit into a program designed specifically for children. As a result, BollyFit KIDS was born. 

Holly has been actively involved in BollyFit in addition to teaching classes. She has performed with Anuja on several occasions and even ran such events as the BollyFit KIDS tent and the kids performance at the Ann Arbor Summer Festival.  Holly has also shared the joy of BollyFit with other groups, including large Girl Scout camps.

As a mother of two young girls, ages three and five, Holly knows there is not a lot offered for this age group that is both active enough to count as exercise, but also not competitive or highly skill based.  This can be frustrating for parents and kids, or just plain not much fun. Holly has worked with Anuja to create BollyFit KIDS where kids connect with their beautiful little selves, feel and appreciate their muscles moving and their hearts pumping to dynamic music. As a trained dancer, accredited teacher, certified BollyFit Guide and mother, Holly is thrilled to share BollyFit KIDS with your children! 

BollyFit Guide - Nisha

Nisha is at home on the dance floor and the stage. It all began with her debut, appearing as a tomato at the age of 2. That was all it took for her to catch the dancing bug, and it hasn’t gone away since!

Nisha trained for 12 years in Bharat Natyam, a South Indian classical dance style; Kathak, a North Indian classical dance style; and folk dance styles from from all across India. Through the years, she also performed in many plays, musicals and dance dramas, bringing Indian dancing to her schools and community. As a graduate student at the University of Michigan, Nisha choreographed and taught Bollywood dances to her fellow students that they performed at the school’s cultural events.

Nisha received her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering, and followed it up with a Masters in Information Science, focusing on economics, management and policy. She currently works as a Web Designer and User Experience Specialist for the University of Michigan.

Nisha first discovered BollyFit through friends, and quickly found that it was the twinkle that was missing from her day. She has tried many other fitness and dance classes, but feels that BollyFit is unique in that it is a perfect alignment of relaxation, dance and fitness. As she says, “In the rest of my life, I’m a little awkward and shy. I can trip or stub my toe walking across a flat surface. This makes some of the other classes more difficult or stressful for me. But with BollyFit, when I hear the music and start to move, I am a confident, graceful person, and the beats carry me through the rest of the week.” Nisha is a certified BollyFit Guide to help others awaken their own personal twinkles, and looks forward to dancing with all of you!

BollyFit Guide - Ziva

Ziva was born into a long line of strong, athletic women.  Her mother, grandmother, aunts, and several cousins were life-long movers and gymnasts.  Ziva literally began tumbling before she was born, as her mother continued to do back-handsprings and remain active throughout her pregnancy.  She started attending gymnastics classes at the age of 5 and began competing on a national level by the age of 10.  Due to the constant physical strain of competitive gymnastics, Ziva turned her attention to the world of dance, and at the age of 15, she found her calling. 

Throughout the years, Ziva has taught and studied several dance forms, including tap, jazz, lyrical, ballet, hip hop, acro-jazz, liturgical, sacred, contemporary, improv., modern, bollywood, raks sharqi (belly dance), and various ballroom and period dances. She has also had the experience of performing in various competitive dance teams, troupes, and companies.  In addition, Ziva has danced on national and international TV with venues such as the Bollywood Movie Awards, Naya Andez, APPNA, the Philadelphia Phillies, and Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance.

Besides training at local dance studios, Ziva received much of her dance training at Hope College in Holland, Michigan and graduated with a B.S. in psychology from York College of Pennsylvania.  She also trained in Washington, D.C. with artists such as Artemis and Laurel Victoria Gray prior to becoming a solo professional artist in 2004. In 2007, Ziva created and directed her own professional belly dance troupe, Troupe Anwar, and opened her own dance studio, Ziva’s Dance Studio.  She has taught workshops all over the country and at conventions such as the Great Lakes Belly Dance Convention in 2008 and 2009, and Shimmy Tecumseh in 2010. 

When Ziva was first introduced to BollyFit, she was quickly drawn to the encompassing and inviting atmosphere.  Ziva believes dance is an avenue for everyone, of every shape, size, and walk of life.  BollyFit is the perfect space to allow people not only to become fit physically, but also enhances their emotional, mental, and social well-being.  Ziva is excited to share her joy of dance with others within the BollyFit and the newly formed, “BollyFit Belly” dance realm, which will include traditional BollyFit customs with added belly dance flare.  She is ready to project her positive energy throughout her class and enhance the “sparkling, twinkling, and shimmying” dancer within each student. 

Ziva’s lifelong motto as a teacher and dancer is to share the joy of dance with the surrounding community, to educate people on the history and purpose of dance, and to inspire everyone to partake in the universal language of dance.  After hearing Anuja share with BollyFit students, “When in doubt, Shake It”, Ziva knew that her own personal motto “When in Doubt…Shimmy!” would fit easily into the BollyFit atmosphere. She is excited to introduce the belly dancing shimmy to BollyFit students and looks forward to dancing with you all.

BollyFit Guide - Atasi

Atasi loves to dance! She has been learning and performing various forms of Indian dance for over 16 years. She trained in the classical South Indian dance style, Bharat Natyam, for 12 years and presented her Arangetram (professional stage debut). Atasi also studied the North Indian art form, Kathak, and has participated in and choreographed numerous Bollywood performances. As an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan, she spent four years as a member of the South Asian competitive team, Maya Dance Troupe, performing classical and modern fusion Indian dances.

Atasi received her Bachelor of Science from Michigan in 2008 in Brain, Behavior, and Cognitive Science. She has a diverse background with experience in social research, minority health and cross cultural relations and has studied German, Oriya and Hindi. Atasi is currently a second-year student at the University of Michigan Law School and is heavily involved in student life where she holds several leadership roles.  She has also organized and choreographed Bollywood acts for a culturally diverse group of law students.

Even with such a rigorous schedule, Atasi sought out BollyFit Creator, Anuja Rajendra, because Atasi was so energized about the unique BollyFit experience.  Atasi continues to be a regular student in Anuja’s classes, where she loves the energy that each individual brings to the studio, the peaceful feeling she has at the end of class and the explanations of dance as a mind/body/spirit experience.  She explains, “BollyFit classes are fun and fast-paced, yet manage to calm me down after stressful days.  As a certified BollyFit Guide herself, Atasi is energized about “opening the same BollyFit experience to her own students and helping draw the “twinkling star” from within each individual, whether a first time or life-long dancer.”

BollyFit Guide - Gina

Gina first discovered her love of Indian dance and music in high school when she began performing at cultural shows and various festivals at the invitation of friends.  In college, her study breaks consisted of Bollywood dance sessions with her roommates.  Gina continued to perform folk and Bollywood style dances throughout high school and college.  Then a career, marriage and motherhood came along and she thought her dancing days were over. 

Following an invitation from a mom at her son’s preschool, she watched BollyFit rock out at Border’s and she was hooked.  Gina has always been somewhat allergic to working out. However, finding BollyFit changed her outlook and she no longer dreads exercise. Rather than feeling like “working out,” BollyFit reminds her of the fun she had dancing with her college roommates with fitness as an added bonus. Gina has danced her way to fabulous fitness, fun, and friendship with BollyFit!  After moving to Ann Arbor from Chicago, she never thought she would recover; yet BollyFit has helped her find home. BollyFit means feeling graceful and beautiful in the presence of warm and accepting company.

As a high school math teacher, she’s tried singing, dancing, and math aerobics to teach her students graphing and the quadratic formula. But when the opportunity to become a BollyFit Guide arose, she knew she had finally found a place to mesh her love of teaching and dance. Gina’s heart does a little hop, skip, and jump in anticipation of each class, and she looks forward to sharing the joy of BollyFit with you!

BollyFit Guide - Grace

Grace has been dancing from her toes to her nose since she was a child. She began ballet at the age of five, studying it for several years before adding tap and jazz to her repertoire. In college, Grace embraced the freedom of modern dance as well as the rhythms of African and Caribbean dance. She also developed a profound interest in stepping, a dance tradition among African American fraternities and sororities. After college, Grace briefly worked with the African dance group Giwayen Mata, a professional all-women’s ensemble. She has enjoyed learning a variety of dance styles, including West African, Afro-modern, Afro-Caribbean, hip hop, hula, Cuban, Dunham technique, stepping, South African gumboot, and Zulu. Grace has also studied the classical Indian dance style, Bharat Natyam, which introduced her to the gracefulness and precision of ancient art forms and the joy of dancing in a tradition that was totally foreign to her. Because she was not expected to “master” the dance in terms of a professional performance, Grace was free to explore a new form of movement. She has continued to seek the gracefulness of women dancing together and freedom of learning in taking BollyFit classes. She finds joy in BollyFit because listening to the music creates an energy of movement which inspires her to dance, but also reminds her of the friendships she has developed with a dynamic group of women.

Grace is currently working on her PhD at the University of Michigan, where her research is focused on music, movement, and politics in the British colonial and post-colonial context in West Africa. She was featured in the insightful documentary “Many Steps” produced by Patrick Mureithi and was mentioned in the book “Soulstepping” by Elizabeth Fine.

As a result of her dedication to spiritual and physical well-being, Grace was able to lose 50 pounds in nine months during college. In order to fully enjoy the multiple rhythms and excitement in her African dance classes, which exercise the whole body at once, she began to supplement her efforts with jogging and nutritional changes.  There is also a spirit of community, acceptance, and affirmation in cultural dance classes that help make these positive changes shared and sustainable that Grace now finds among her BollyFit friends.

As a BollyFit Guide, Grace combines her excitement about cross-cultural dialogue and study along with her passion for working with people. She looks forward to guiding you through your own BollyFit experience and sharing the wisdom and joy she has gained from being in BollyFit founder Anuja Rajendra’s classes. She is inspired to be a BollyFit Guide because it offers her an opportunity to contribute to the possibility of an interconnected world, where we appreciate, honor and celebrate each culture’s traditions. Grace is excited to share the joy of fitness through dance with you in BollyFit!