Shalini Bathina is an American actress and dancer currently residing in Los Angeles. Prior to college, she was always passionate about dance and acting. She was involved in the theatre community in high school, and trained in a form of Indian Classical Dance called Kuchipudi for fifteen years, in Natyalaya School of Dance under the tutelage of Jyothi Lakkaraju. After her early training in the classical form, she performed her two hour solo debut (Aarangetram) in 2007, a milestone achievement for her. She continued to perform, choreograph, and teach through the school with her peers. While continuing her training with Natyalaya, she performed in San Francisco Ethnic Festival, and other theatres in the Bay Area till she went off to college.

Dedicated to pursue a career in the arts she graduated from USC with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre, and a minor in Cinematic Arts where she studied contemporary and classical theatre, along with On-camera training, and audition technique. She has been a part of various plays throughout college such as Naga Mandala, Peter Pan: Or The Boy Who Never Grew Up, and Blind Me Tender, and each show was an opportunity to showcase her dance abilities as well. She has also done film and TV at USC and has found a passion for it in the past few years. In the summer of 2012, she attended the British American Drama Academy for the Midsummer Oxford Program, where she took lessons in Contemporary plays, Shakespeare, Movement, Audition technique, and Voice with esteemed professors Ian Wooldridge and Peter Francis James. Along with film and tv, working in the fashion industry like modeling for Chynni and Frontier, two Indian Fashion wear companies has been of great interest to her as well. Modeling for her friends who are up and coming photographers has been a blast, especially when it's a fun set.

Along with acting she continued to follow her love for dance and became the lead of USC's official Bollywood team, Zeher. The team performed at Jhoomti Shaam in Los Angeles, Bollywood Berkeley in the Bay Area, and actually won first place at South Asian Showdown in Boston! She also choreographed and performed Classical, Classical fusion, and Bollywood dances in 2012 and 2013 culture show events at USC. She was also performed in one of LACMA’s exhibits in the summer of 2011 with Jamal Dance Theatre, an innovative piece that combined different styles of dance through a game of chess. She joined MKM Bollystars soon after that, and has been performing with them since 2011, notably Hollywood Bowl Summer Sounds, and multiple performances in Chicago as well.

Shalini is currently signed with The ESI Network Management Company, and with JLA Talent for Theatrical and Commercial representation. Currently she is in the Intermediate class at Beverly Hills Playhouse, taught by Art Cohan, and Michael Petted. This year, she shot a national McDonald's commercial that has been running all year as well as a Time Warner Cable commercial as well. She is auditioning in Los Angeles, taking Improv classes at The Groundlings, shooting short films, dancing and teaching with MKM Bollystars, meeting new people, and trying something new everyday. She hopes to act and dance for as long as she can and is very excited for what the future holds for her.

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