Tamanna's first guru, Shantibala Sinha, is her role model. She describes the latter as a dedicated Manipuri dancer with origins in Manipur. "Her personality, teaching style and commitment to her art inspired me so much that I always wanted to follow in her footsteps. Among the other dancers I admire are Boushali Chatterjee, Bimbhavati Devi, Munmun Ahmed, Kabirul Islam Khokon, Deepa Khondokar, Farzana Chowdhury Baby and many others," says Tamanna.

Tamanna had an early grounding in dance. After graduating in Manipuri dance from Rabindra Bharati University, she took her dance lessons under Bipin Singh and Kalavati Devi for six years in Kolkata. She has performed in many special dance programmes such as the Khajuraho Dance Festival, Konarak Dance Festival and Udayshankar Dance Festival in India. Among her composed dance pieces which won appreciation are Nrityamalika and Toray Bandha Ghorar Dim. She established a dance school Nrityam in 1998 and still performs in different stage shows along with her students.

What does Tamanna feel about fusion music? To quote her, "Blending classical with folk or modern music is a common practice that began here a few years ago. However, fusion dance has been introduced in our country very recently. I appreciate this effort of bringing diversity in dance through creating artistic novelty. I support the idea of creating new styles through experiments and the audience also is appreciative."

Tamanna is now looking into the future. "The establishment of a dance institution is my long cherished dream," she says.