Being the first and ardent disciple of a student of the Classical dance exponent Kum.Shobana for the past 12 years ,Suma Mani's dedication to this art form is a commitment beyond the ordinary. In 1995 after intensive tutelage from her Guru Shobana, she made her debut on stage proving her inherent gift as a fine dancer. Since then she has continued to perform to audiences of connoisseurs with her Guru both in India and abroad. She has the distinction of performing with her Guru Shobana in Kualalumpur before the King and Queen of Malaysia. Her dance tours have taken her all over U.S.A, Europe, the whole of Southeast Asia and Australia Suma Mani has over the years performed in several of the Music and Dance Festivals in India and she had given more than 500 dance recitals so far. In 1994 Guru Shobana founded Kalarpana with the intention of committing herself to the propagation of the classical arts.The aim of Kalarpana is to organize yearly festivals throughout India. This will include performances of nationally and globally known artists to raise funds that will be ploughed back into training talented artists who are financially insecure. Under its umbrella, Suma Mani started the offshoot of Kalarpana at Numngambakkam to teach the classical dance for the young.Suma Mani has the toddler brigade of 18 children aged from 6 to 12 who had performed solo arangetrams in the past 3 years. She has also performed at the nationally acclaimed Surya festival in Trivandrum, Kerala in 2004.She had also performed the two-day annual dance fest hosted by the Madras chapter of The International Dance Alliance (IDA) (July 19-20, 2004). Suma Mani had won the Yuva kala Bharathi award for the year 2003 for the achievement in Bharatanatyam, Nattuvangam and Choreography at Bharath kalachar festival. She has also received the balasaraswathi Award from Sri ragam Fine Arts in 2004.