Describing dancer Sharmila Bandyapadyay as her "guru", Arno has had the fortune of being guided in Bharatnatyam and Manipuri by other notables from Chhayanaut (Institute for Music and Dance)--Belayet Hossain and Tamanna Rahman. She is a student of the yearly Bharatnatyam workshop, conducted by Professor CV Chandrashekhar, under the aegis of the Indian High Commission in Dhaka. In fact she spent time in Chennai in 2002 to learn dance from Chandra-shekhar, a "very enriching" experience in her words. Arno is also an enlisted dance artiste of Bangladesh Television.

And there is more to come. Since 2002 she has been teaching Bharatnatyam at Chhayanat. She has also attended several workshops conducted by noted dancers such as Leela Samson, Madhobi Mudgal and Birju Maharaj. Her art has also taken her to Delhi, Lucknow and Kolkata in India. Her latest group performance is in the Tagore dance drama Chitrangada, directed by Sharmila, while she has gone solo at a Bharatnatyam performance organised by Chhayanat in Dhaka.

Though many dancers bemoan the tendency for dance artistes to use the medium as a springboard to get into filmdom, TV and modelling, Arno is optimistic about the future of Bharatnatyam in the country. "People are more inclined towards classical dance than when I was a child. In fact Bangladesh can boast of many high class dancers today," she says.

Ultimately what counts, says Arno, is to "dance with joy for oneself rather than trying to gain plaudits for one's beauty or a remarkable 'jump'."