Today we’d like to introduce you to Nitin Ranjan Ojha.
Hi nitin ranjan, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My name is Nitin Ranjan Ojha. I’m a software engineer and dancer originally from India, and I moved to the US about a year ago.
My journey with dance started when I was very young. I used to watch dance performances on TV and try to copy the moves at home. Whenever there was a birthday party or family gathering, I would perform whatever I had learned. At that time, I didn’t realize it, but those small moments became the foundation of my journey as a performer.
As I grew older, dance naturally became a bigger part of my life. During college, I started participating in annual festivals and eventually began choreographing performances. That was the first time I truly discovered my creative side. I realized dance was more than just movement for me — it was expression, storytelling, and emotion. Creating performances and watching people connect with them gave me confidence and made me want to pursue dance more seriously.
Over time, I started choreographing group performances for competitions, and that pushed me to grow even more as an artist and leader. But one of the biggest turning points in my journey came when I started creating YouTube dance videos. I would spend hours creating choreography, planning concepts, shooting videos, and trying to give every piece a cinematic feel. It wasn’t easy, but I loved the process.
Those videos became my motivation to keep going and to create an identity for myself through my art. Every video taught me something new — not just technically, but creatively and emotionally. YouTube became a platform where I could freely express myself and experiment with ideas without limits.
Then came the biggest transformation in my journey — freestyle dance. Around 2019, while trying to grow as a dancer, I got introduced to freestyle, and honestly, there was no turning back after that. Freestyle changed the way I looked at dance and at myself. I started training harder than ever, exploring the possibilities of my body, understanding my emotions, and trying to create my own style instead of following someone else’s.
It felt like I was reading myself like a book and expressing those pages through movement. That phase took my dancing to another level because it gave me something every artist searches for — identity. It taught me how to be fully myself without fear.
And that’s what continues to motivate me today. Dance is no longer just a hobby or performance for me — it’s a journey of self-discovery. I believe, at the end of the day, we are all searching for who we truly are. And for me, art was the thing that showed me the ‘You’ in this life… because life starts with a ‘Y’ and ends with ‘U.’”
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
honestly, the journey was never smooth for me. Getting closer to the things I truly wanted came with a lot of struggles behind the scenes.
One of the biggest battles was self-doubt. I think a lot of artists go through this phase where you start feeling disconnected from the world around you. There were moments when nothing made sense to me anymore. I kept comparing myself with others, feeling like everyone was moving ahead in life while I was being left behind. That mindset can quietly break your confidence if you let it.
Financially, things were also challenging. I come from a middle-class family, and stability was important. To support my dreams, I worked full-time as a software engineer for around nine hours every day(sometimes its more than that), and after work, my second shift would begin — dance. I still remember finishing work around 8 PM and then going directly to teach dance classes from 9 to 11 PM just to earn extra money and continue supporting my journey. There were many phases like that where life felt exhausting, but I knew why I was doing it.
Another challenge was balancing dreams with responsibilities. Managing both my professional life and my dance journey at the same time was never easy. I had to sacrifice a lot of comfort and normal experiences along the way — hanging out with friends, traveling, dating, or simply relaxing. My job was helping me sustain my dance journey, so I had to stay focused and perform well in both worlds.
And then came loneliness — probably one of the hardest parts of the journey. When you dedicate yourself so deeply to something, there are moments when you feel completely alone. There’s no one constantly motivating you, no one telling you to keep going. Every decision, every failure, every comeback — it’s all on you. That phase challenged me mentally and emotionally in ways I never expected.
But looking back now, I realize those struggles shaped me the most. They taught me discipline, patience, self-belief, and resilience. They taught me how to keep moving forward even when nobody was watching.
And I think that’s what art eventually became for me — not just performance, but survival, identity, and purpose.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I have trained primarily in Hip Hop, with a strong focus on freestyle. Over time, I’ve also been actively participating in underground battles and creating dance videos. Alongside dance, I work as a videographer and video editor, so a large part of my work naturally combines movement with visual storytelling and conceptual video creation.
What I’m most proud of is the process of self-exploration that came through this journey. It wasn’t always smooth — there were moments of self-doubt, financial pressure, and times where I had to balance a full-time software engineering job with long hours of dance practice, teaching, and content creation. But through all of that, I kept going because I knew dance was something I couldn’t step away from.
Over time, this discipline and consistency helped me develop my own identity as an artist. Freestyle, especially, played a huge role in that — it taught me how to express myself honestly and stop chasing external validation. I started focusing less on fitting into styles and more on building my own voice through movement and visuals.
Today, I feel proud of how far I’ve come, but I also know there is still a lot more to explore. For me, this journey is not just about performance or content creation — it’s about understanding and expressing who I am.
At the core, my intention has always been simple: to let the world know who Nitin Ranjan is, through my work. And I strongly believe that when you stay true to your identity and keep building it with consistency, people eventually recognize it — exactly the way you know yourself.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I’ve really been enjoying Dallas. It’s my first time in the US, and it’s been an exciting phase for me both personally and creatively. The city has opened up a lot of opportunities for dance, and I’ve been able to connect with new people and expand my network. I’m genuinely enjoying the journey here and making the most of it.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nitin_ranjan
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nitinranjan356/videos
