Shreya Lenka is an Indian Kpop trainee who became famous for competing to become the fifth member of the South Korean girl band Blackswan; Blackswan gained popularity for being the first Kpop girl group with an African American person.Since childhood, Shreya had wanted to learn music. She failed to get a good music teacher because of her deep voice. So, her grandmother arranged a Hindustani classical music teacher for her; she trained under him twice a week. She learned western vocals, however, by watching online videos. A childhood picture of Shreya Lenka.Since kindergarten, Shreya has been training in dance, but she began taking her dancing lessons seriously in 2016. For a year and a half, she attained training in Odissi but quit it because lessons were expensive. Her first dance mentor was Madan Mohan Purty, the BoogieWoogie Hip Hop winner of 2009. After her fathers transfer to Jharsuguda, she learned dancing at the dance studio of Mendo Barla, a famed choreographer and fitness instructor. As of 2022, she is training in freestyle, hip-hop, and contemporary dance forms. Mendo Barla.Shreya has participated in many dance competitions and won them. Shreya Lenka with the awards she won in dance competitions.Her parents were always supportive of her passion for dancing. Her parents said that Shreya was always a hard-working and focused girl. According to her parents, she used to go to dancing lessons after returning home from school at 2.30 pm and never returned before 9 pm.In an interview, her mother said she (her mother) always wanted to pursue dancing, but she never received her fathers approval. She further said that she didnt know if Shreya would become a Blackswan member, but she was happy to see her daughter follow her dream.When one of her friends began taking an interest in Kpop when one of her friends showed her the South Korean boyband Exos song Growl. Shreya liked it and began searching for more artists like PSY, Rania, BTS, and Blackpink. She began copying their moves and wishing to become an idol herself.In 2021, a friend told her to apply for online Kpop auditions. She began auditioning for many Kpop companies and followed many of them on social media. She watched numerous bloggers who talked about Kpop.In 2021, she dropped out of school after clearing class 10 and took a year gap from her studies. During the one-year gap, she worked on her vocals, her English diction by listening to English songs, and her understanding of Korean. She even auditioned for many entertainment companies in South Korea. At the same time, she also opened her YouTube channel, Shreya Lenka Dance, where she posted her dance videos and song covers. 19.7K subscribers follow her on the channel.She auditioned for many companies but only faced rejections. During the first lockdown in India, she gave her first audition, for which she shot at the yoga studio where her aunt taught yoga as dance studios were closed. She failed to make it in the auditions but received positive reviews, which she kept in mind to move forward through the rejection she faced during all the other auditions. While talking about giving auditions in an interview, she said, With each audition, I tried to improve myself by monitoring the videos..