“Variety Pack” from our Hotel Cafe show

Please feel free to do Burlesque moves at home!

last night a dance class saved my life, the fly girls, egoic dancing, exxxploration, and owning what you LOVE

yesterday i woke up and i didn’t want to get out of bed. you know that feeling when you just feel stuck in the mud. after my dance class last night i realized that i MUST embrace that dance is my therapy. it can bring from a point of the lowest frequency to sublime ELATION!!!

i’ve always denied the dancer in me. even after class, a woman came up to me and asked if i was a dancer and i said “no, i’m a singer.” why???  i don’t know why. maybe because i don’t have the typical dancer history which would qualify me as a real dancer? though i was a late bloomer (i wasn’t formally trained until college!), i had it in me. my dance background consisted of taping the fly girls on “in living color” and my childhood best friend, Carla, teaching me what she learned in her dance classes. that girl had (and still has) moves. my abuela (who was a dancer in NYC) danced with me a lot and i learned to move through osmosis. she could shake it with the BEST of them. even in her 70s even she could get DOWN. it was crazy! then i met alejandro, my now ex-novio, when i was 19. he taught me to dance a salsa that was not my grandmother’s salsa. we trained. 3 hours a day. and when i moved to LA to pursue music, he came with me to pursue his dancing. in LA you can dance salsa every night of the week! coming from North Carolina, that blew my mind! i started dancing with dancers from all over the world and learned so much from the clubs. i took lessons, workshops, even volunteered at the LA Salsa Congress so I could get a free pass to learn. now salsa is like breathing for me. it feels so natural. i can intuitively feel where my partner wants me to move and play within that space, with them and with the music. it’s divine. what killed that for me was when i starting meeting dancers that dance  from their egos… they were too busy showing off, trying to flip me, trying to get attention or a reaction, seeing how many times they could spin themselves or me, some wouldn’t even look at me in the eyes or even my face… i was merely a puppet, barbie dollesque being turned, flipped, thrown around the floor so they could have people look at them and think they’re bad ass. egoic dancing doesn’t allow dance to be the divine connection it can and should be damn it! i see the same thing with musicians. when people are so concerned with how they will be received the art suffers. not necessarily skill. but the feeling. it’s devoid of authenticity. we artists need to bring that back!

i so enjoy exploring other genres of dancing… i did some what i’ll call… “classy exotic burlesque” dancing to pay for my schoolin at USC, did a brief stint in a belly dancing company, took a random and not so great tango class with my man (we need to find a better one we just leaned on each other and walked in a circle for an hour), african dance was my favorite class in college- the way the dancer and the drummer commune fascinates me… i took a few hip-hop, ballet, and many jazz classes… and i appreciate them all… i love the strength and fearlessness and solidity of hip-hop, the discipline and beauty of ballet, the sass and extension and funkiness of jazz… they all have their something. now i’m learning samba and i swear my hips are learning a new language.

i’m discovering now how essential it is that we honor and acknowledge and celebrate what we love. thus,  i have decided to embrace my dancer self completely. i can’t deny what’s within me. it heals me. it connects me. i think of all the people in the world denying themselves from what they love to do, from expressing that love, and for what? why? i encourage you to own whatever it is you love, acknowledge your passion and celebrate it through authentic self-expression.

detours to our dreams and lessons learned

our dreams often don’t unfold the way we planned… we can envision our dream becoming a reality, work towards our dream diligently, and trust that the universe (or God) will make everything align and still the dream doesn’t SEEM to come into fruition… but i believe we should dare to adjust our perception and think perhaps this is just a detour, a lesson to be learned before our dream comes true… and perhaps our dream might come true in an even grander way… there are INFINITE POSSIBILITES!!!!…   

now that the album is in the completion phase, i can reflect and see the detours to my dreams and the lessons i’ve learned…. here’s the cliffs notes version on the reflection of how i’ve arrived to where i am today…..i grew up singing, knowing this is what i wanted to do… i loved growing up in North Carolina but was super focused on going to NYC after high school to pursue music. unfortunately, i was discouraged by many to go to a place so big where i would be swallowed up by heathens or something like that…so i ended up staying in NC and going to study opera for 2 years at UNCG… (detour: Greensboro, NC) (lesson learned: don’t let anyone tell you where/how you should live your life)… my music education was valuable and i made some great friendships yet i didn’t really get a sense of the music business in the small town of Greensboro… fortunately, my uncle mario heard me sing at my mom’s wedding and encouraged me to come to LA to sing and live with him there. so july 4, 2001, i left to drive across country to explore this other world (because it IS another world)… the first year here i sang back up gigs, made a pop demo (that was supposed to consist of  music i wrote but ended up being butchered, over processed, and unauthentic) (lesson learned: make music that truly represents who you are and what you’re about)… also, my dad stopped talking to me i think (i’m still not sure) because he was upset that i was dropping out of school-though i never said i was dropping out it was more of a break really- after a year of adjustment to LA, i ended up going to USC’s School of Music and studying jazz (much more fitting for my love of freedom and improvisation in music)… unfortunately, because i had a jealous, insecure boyfriend i didn’t gig that much- he was very threatened by me collaborating with others (lesson learned: don’t let others hold you back from living your dream- it they’re trying to hold you back they don’t really know how to love you)… also, i was working in a burlesque / gentleman’s club to pay for the other half of my tuition that wasn’t covered with grants…(so many lessons learned there – see my blog on empowerment through our sexuality)… not a very healthy environment… after school i took yet another 2 year detour (i didn’t know how to really go for it… and i was scared)… (detour: The William Morris Agency). after learning a ridiculous amount about the music business (my boss was amazing enough to let me sit in on all the meetings with these music biz geniuses), i still found myself unhappy on the business side of things and not doing what i was meant to be doing- SINGING damn it! (lesson learned: sometimes we have to take detours to gain information that will later help us excel in our dreams!!!). so i did some spiritual work (i need many blogs to express the spiritual work i did and am still doing), i read countless books one called “feel the fear and do it anyway” (i know -bad title but good book for me at the time), i reread “the alchemist” (the book that made me believe in signs and influenced my big move to LA in the first place), also took in “the power of the subconscious mind” and absorbed many, many other books… i’m a queen of inspirational reads- i can send you a list just email me … things shifted. i transformed. (well i’m still transforming!) then i just went for it! i even reached out to musicians way beyond my echelon for advice, guidance, and connections. why not? what did i have to lose? (lesson learned: always aim to surround yourself with people that know more than you do in order to grow)… and from reaching out to Prince’s keyboard player, who didn’t have time to produce my record as he was on tour with Prince, i was connected with the super talented Andre De Sant’anna who produced and co-wrote M.U.S.I.C. with me  (a dream come true), which has been the last 2 years of my life (along with way too much for this blog – that’s more bio material 40 years from now)… And out of our musical collaboration a deep love flourished… (lessons learned: our dreams sometimes are intertwined (a dream of love and music), sometimes they don’t come true in the way we expect them to, and sometimes they unfold grander than we imagined)…

now to dream a bigger dream