We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dwayne Cook a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Dwayne, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

A moment I took a risk was when I made the decision to turn down A REALLY big Job opportunity, to be in a major film , just to audition for a show that would actually open more doors than I could imagine. In all honesty I don’t regret it at all and I’m truly grateful for each and every experience or opportunity I’m afforded as a performer or even in my art form. I decided to take the risk and not go out for the job even though I wasn’t represented by an agent at the time but something just didn’t feel right about the timing so I decided to follow my Heart and it led me to the most amazing places.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Dwayne Cook Junior, I am a 33-year-old professional dancer, choreographer, master teacher, and artistic mentor and liaison. I started dance at the Houston Ballet Academy at three years old, Continuing my training through the years at school such as schools American ballet, dance theater of Harlem, the Ailey school, The University of Oklahoma, the Juilliard school, JKO (ABT) school, as well as modern inconemporary training in styles such as limon , Humphrey Weidman, Pilobolus, Graham, Dunham, And Gaga . My concert Dance credits include
PHILADANCO
Houston Ballet
ODC
San Francisco Ballet
Vitacca Ballet
DRA
Bad Boys of Dance
I’ve also been fortunate enough to train and perform professional musical theater, as well as jazz and tap. ( Broadway Credits include The Wiz / The Little Mermaid/ Kinky Boots/ Into the woods)
My commercial credits include top 30 so you think you can dance season 9 ,10 and 11
American musical awards – Chris Brown
BET awards honors– Jasmine Sullivan
Pride tour – Deborah Cox
Super Bowl commercial/halftime Dash beyonce
Feature dancer – bridezilla
My goal it’s to eventually form a board that will produce a boarding school for the performing and visual arts as well as the sciences and mathematics. I want to make it affordable to urban communities into students who truly want to excel in those areas teaching them not only excellence in their desired areas but how to be great people, which will intern and make them better at mastering this day to day life.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The best source of new clients is all clients that want to be there and really want to support my art in my vision and will allow me to guide them in their artistic journey.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn was that not everyone who says they are in support of you is truly in support of you. How I had to learn it was by truly learning to trust my own instincts not only when it came to business in navigating my career, but also when he came to navigating my friendships and acquaintances with people that I consider to be my inner circle and such

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @_mrsrtistik
• Facebook: Dwayne Cook
• Linkedin: Dwayne Cook

Image Credits
ASHKAN Images ( photography) Christian Dior ( garment)