[1][2] Dando's first role was in the TV film Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America (2006).
[3] Dando next appeared in Peter Jackson's feature film adaptation of The Lovely Bones (2009).
The following year she gave a solo performance in front of several hundred schoolchildren and their parents at the annual regional school choir festival, with guests including the Mayor of Auckland City.
She was encouraged by teachers to develop her talent, and began to study classical singing (as well as theory and piano) with the professional soprano Gina Sanders.
[citation needed] Her first professional role was in Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America, a made-for-television movie.