We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Julie Hunkert. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Julie below.

Hi Julie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Dance and Music have been in my life since I can remember. My dad would always play a mix of Pop and Indie Rock Music, which strongly influenced my music taste to date.
While dance and music exist in correlation most of the time, I knew I wanted my life to be filled with a creative profession once I was grown up. Dance continued to be my main path, but in addition I started writing short stories and developing small artistic concepts in High School.
When dance took up all my focus and nothing mattered more than learning new choreographic pieces and being pushed physically I knew it would be what I wanted or needed to do. Of course the encouragement of teachers and people who had seen me perform helped a lot to really push for this insanely hard career.
It sounds rather simple but when the passion is so strong that whatever you do in your daily life feeds into your craft, thats when you really know, because even when I trained professionally, I sometimes doubted my path. Last but not least, its all about the community that is surrounding you, finding the most nurturing caring environment in order to challenge and grow your profession is one if not the most important aspect of doing well.

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?

While being a professionally trained contemporary dancer/performer I understand myself as an interdisciplinary artist creating performances and art pieces on stage, in writing and of course in dance choreography.
My artistic focus is a lot on aligning the inwards focus – introspective- with the outer world. It is essential for me to be aiming for a place of authenticity in expression and to create stories that are relatable, so a broad audience is able to resonate with it.

A quality that I was able to develop throughout years of living abroad, away from my home country (Germany) is to connect ideas that surpass borders and religions, seeing every human as who they are and what their potential is. Its very important to me to connect with each individual in a unique way, so it is a real exchange and not a monologue,
An important part of my work is the constant search and education of what our globalized world needs at this point of time.
No matter if it is creating an environment of belonging and integrity in teaching dance or writing poetry, the ultimate goal to me is always to connect people in a way that can support their lives and inspire positive change.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My main goal is healing. A collective healing through art. The most beautiful thing is to inspire people to lead a more fulfilled and rich life. Rich in sensation, experiences and connection.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Seeing how my work or performance resonates with the audience. There is nothing more beautiful than being able to give something to people, when they didn’t know they needed it (same thing happens to me as an audience member too when I see an incredible show).
And of course the creative community, despite all the stereotypes about competitiveness I am extremely grateful be part of a supportive group creatives that cheer each other on!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.gingerjulie.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/julia.hunkert.5/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-hunkert-b8b4292b8/

Image Credits

Phil Mahabeer
Santiago Leon
Allison Canales
Kuoheng Huang