We recently connected with Dina DeSimone and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Dina thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I knew pretty early on in my life that I wanted to pursue a creative path. I can pinpoint when I knew to two separate events. The first was when I saw “Wicked” original cast (yes I am bragging) on Broadway when I was around 4 years old. It sounds really young to remember anything but if I close my eyes I can still see everything so vividly. I had never seen anything I wanted to do more. Funny enough I did not go to NYC and do the Broadway route because I realized that I was more into commercial dance than theatre dance, even though my Broadway roots run deep. In that same vein, the other pivotal moment I realized I wanted to be an artist was watching So You Think You Can Dance Season 2 (quite frankly the whole season because I mean come on it’s the best one) but specifically the “Ramalama Bang Bang” dance choreographed by Wade Robson. I had never seen anything like that in my life and in that moment I KNEW this was what I needed to be doing. I wanted to dance like that and I wanted to make dances like that. And the rest is history.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Originally from Delaware, Dina DeSimone now lives in Los Angeles, California working as a professional dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She relocated from the East Coast to Los Angeles in 2019 to study at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Theatre.

Dina has been dancing since the age of two training in: ballet, tap, jazz, hip-hop, contemporary, jazz funk, and lyrical. Back home Dina was a teacher at Bella Dance Center starting at age fourteen, after being an assistant teacher for many years before, and continued teaching until she graduated High School. She taught jazz, hip-hop, tap, ballet, jazz funk, lyrical, and contemporary for students ranging from ages 2-17.

Since graduating in 2021 Dina has continued to train and gain mentorship from some of the industry’s most influential instructors and choreographers. She has appeared in Hulu’s “Playground” series. As well as been in music videos for: Trixie Mattel, Swae Lee, Guy Tang, Laur Elle, BK Habermehl, and Reill. She helped choreograph a stage performance for BlakTinx Dance Festival, as well as choreographed a music video for artist TX2.

Dina is very passionate about teaching and hopes to continue to do so in the future, with both children and industry professionals. Dina feels as though teaching is something she was born to do. She wants to continue to share her style of choreography, years of knowledge, and affection for dance with the world. Blending old style of Jazz Funk with current and ever changing styles Dina thinks that she has a unique style of choreography that she wants to share.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me, I think that the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is blending all mediums of art. Personally I am a very visual person and I love to be inspired by paintings, fashion, nature, etc. I love putting a whole vision together but of course that all stems from the music, which is my first and deepest love. I also think collaboration is one of the best parts of being a creative. Rarely in other professions do you get to not only work with people but be inspired by them and help each other grow. I think that’s really special.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think non-creatives struggle to understand a lot about peoples journey as a creative, one of being that it is not always linear. Just because we work really hard at something does not mean we will get it right in the moment. This is something I have to remind myself of as well. Divine timing has a lot to do with artists getting their flowers which is hard for some people to understand, I also think that they forget sometimes that while yes we want the recognition and the praise etc. that we do this because we cannot do anything else. We have to create to be happy.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dina.desimone/?hl=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dinadesimone6948/videos

Image Credits

headshots- Wes Klain