We recently connected with Kasey Viani and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Kasey thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us a bit about who your hero is and the influence they’ve had on you?
I have quite a few hero’s in my life for various different reasons, but I think I will pick the hero who greatly influenced the journey I chose to take as a professional dancer and director. As a child, I grew up watching classic films because my mother always had them on the TV. Even when she was cooking and couldn’t watch them, she would have them running so she could listen to them. I grew up with a great appreciation for the classics and the skill set you needed to have to be featured in them. Greats such as Gene Kelly, Ann Miller, Cyd Charisse, Fred Astaire, and Eleanor Powell are just a few of the names I grew up with watching on TV. Many of these names changed how dance is filmed today in our musical movies such as “The Greatest Showman” (one of my personal favorites) for our young generations to enjoy.
Many times, I would stand, with my mouth agape, watching dynamic dance numbers such as “The Barn Dance” from Seven Brides with Seven Brothers, “Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend” featuring Marilyn Monroe from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, “Moses Supposes” from Singing in the Rain, and the historic “Prologue” brilliance designed by Director/Choreographer Jerome Robbins from West Side Story. Dance number after dance humber, even at a young age, I would find myself mesmerized by creative choices the choreographer/director made, and studying dancer techniques closely to understand why they were so watchable.
However, there was one particular dancer/actor, that I found hard to tear myself away from the TV screen when they were performing, Academy Award winner, George Chakiris. His performance as the original Bernardo in the 1961 original film “West Side Story” , in my opinion, stands unparalleled today. There have been many Bernardo’s I have seen perform the role, but no performance even comes close to the fire, technique and timing that George Chakiris executed in the 1961 classic.
His performance inspired me to take my performance with the art of dance to another level. For a long time, I was obsessed with the technique of dance but didn’t think to capture the emotionality of the dance I was performing. It took some time for me to realize that I had forgotten to train one very important part of my body when I was performing- my face! Watching George’s minimalist acting intertwined with his dance skill precision helped guide me on how to be a performer that captured that FIRE. Once I grasped and mastered that skill, I found myself to be very successful very quickly and landed a job performing for The Walt Disney Company at a very young age, and even a starring role in “West Side Story” as Jet leader Riff’s girlfriend, Graziella.
George Chakiris, to me, is one of my hero’s because he is a true model of grace, humility, kindness and gratefulness. His illustrious career was one that was born out of hard work and humility. He never thought that he was above any job, and was simply thankful to work. He worked hard and trained even harder. Destiny took a hand and placed people like Jerome Robbins in his path, and that changed his world forever.
Last year, I found myself wondering how George Chakiris’ health was doing. Being a young 87 years old, I was curious to learn how the Academy Award winner was spending his time. I learned that he had developed a jewelry line and also retired himself from acting quite some time ago. I sent an email to his jewelry company introducing myself with the anticipation that his business manager would get back to me with info on his jewelry line, and, to my surprise, I found in my inbox an email from George Chakiris himself stating that he would love to meet me and my students! I quickly called my mom and shared the surreal news with her, where, in turn, she placed me on speaker phone to repeat the news to my whole family. It was a neat moment.
Last November, I had a wonderful full circle moment when I had the wonderful opportunity to meet George Chakiris in person. Of course I took my mother with me being that she was the one responsible for my adoration of George. It was a full circle moment for her as well, being that she had such a deep love of the classic movies and here she was able to meet a historic icon of one of the most timeless musical movies of all time, Jerome Robbins “West Side Story”.
In true Chakiris fashion, he was kind, generous, and humble. He shared words of wisdom for those trying to break into the entertainment industry, and I won’t ever forget the top two recommendations he provided: “Practice, practice, practice” and “Do lots of theater”. Great words from a great icon that couldn’t ring more true for our young generation today trying to get famous quickly through YouTube, TikTok or Reality TV. True artistry of the performing arts crafts takes time, practice and deep rooted passion and humility.
Kasey, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I got into my industry starting at a very young age. I began dancing at the age of 2, singing by the age of 5, and doing musical theater by the age of 8. My passion was very deep rooted, and I found myself falling in love with the arts as each year passed. Fast forward to today, 40 years later, and I have a resume that could pave part of highway 5.
People love to hear that I worked for The Walt Disney Company as one of their performer/dancers at Disneyland here in Anaheim, California. At the young age of 19, I landed the role of the Snow White Queen in their night show “Fantasmic!” which was one of their newer shows back then. If you don’t know, this year is its 30 year Anniversary, so I take a lot of pride in being one of the original cast members of the show when it was new to the park. Our artistic team accepted nothing but the best from us at every moment, which is why I still have a deep rooted sense of professionalism when it comes to any project I work on. I am still very close with a lot of my former cast mates even after we have gone on to do different things. One fun fact is that the choreographer/director that hired me into Disney all those years ago is still the director/choreographer of “Fantasmic!” today!
I have since gone on to work as a credentialed dance teacher in the public school sector, and began building my private practice over 10 years ago. I am now building my business, Viani’s Performing Arts Academy, that is specialized in providing quality individualized instruction that is personally tailored to each of my students. Viani’s Performing Arts Academy also provides its students the opportunity to perform their own solo act, whether it be singing or dancing, without sharing the stage with other performers. This provides the opportunity for the student to grown their skill within the craft at a quicker pace.
Viani’s Performing Arts Academy also provides educational curriculum to each of its areas of focus to help the student grasp the depth and concept of the craft they are learning. VPAA emphasizes the importance in having knowledge in the arts, because the student is able to personalize their training to a deeper, more relevant level.
Something I am most proud about when reflecting on the journey of Viani’s Performing Arts Academy is the confidence I see my students develop under my instruction. There is something to be said for the individual growth my students make and the sense of self they develop while training with me. Even if they choose not continue in the performing arts, the skills I teach them can be applied to any path they choose to take. Life skills are embedded in the foundation of the performing arts such as problem-solving, timeliness, and respectful behavior, and all of these skills can be applied to any course of life.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
A very clear time that I had to pivot in business and life and career was when Covid hit the US. I was working as a public high school dance and choir teacher, and I was in the middle of staging a production. Hundreds of costumes had been ordered, and countless hours of choreography and rehearsing had been invested. When Covid hit, all of that work suddenly disappeared, never to be revisited again. It was a very sad time in my life, and I started to learn that the sadness ran even deeper among my students. Stories of depression and self-harm began to emerge during the span of the pandemic, because isolation was creating significant mental health issues.
I felt very helpless at that time, because I too was ordered to self isolate, and in my opinion, there is not much ‘human’ contact and connectedness you can do through a computer screen-especially with the performing arts. The performing arts require direct in-person mentorship in order for the person/student to experience true growth within their craft. Yes, there are tutorial videos out there for anyone to train themselves to now, but how is a person to know they are doing the skill correctly if there isn’t a teacher/mentor there to point out where improvement needs to happen.
The depression I saw among my students and fellow peers struck me very deeply, and I felt that I needed to do something about it. There was not enough being said about how the performing arts community was suffering, and I felt I needed to be that person to make a very loud statement about it. One day I heard a song that had absolutely no words to it. A song that completely captured the feeling and soul of the pandemic- the loss and depression people were experiencing- and I had a vision.
That vision very quickly turned into a dance solo which turned into an entire script line which then turned into a short independent film project. I reached out to a dancer who had trained with me for years, and offered her the part of the featured dancer in the film and she couldn’t say yes fast enough. We collaborated on the direction and purpose of the film and never looked back. Hours and hours of rehearsal, training, dancing, filming took place and I found myself on a new venture as an independent filmmaker.
I invested hours of research teaching myself a skill that many filmmakers go to school for so that I could bring a voice to the voiceless in a time where our world was falling apart. By this time, over $1 billion dollars and thousands of jobs had been lost in the US simply due to the performing arts being shut down. Hundreds to thousands of theaters, studios, and performing arts schools had been closed indefinitely because our trade caused ‘gatherings’.
I had to become familiar with technical terminology such as aspect ratio, fps (frames per second), and splicing in order to hone, my new trade skill in independent filmmaking. My initial thought into this process was, “If they are going to shut down our physical stages, they can’t shut down a virtual stage where I can give back purpose to my students and also speak to a very large issue in our society”. And, this is how my short film “Surviving Covid-NINETEEN” was born.
I had to chase music licensing quite extensively in that my entire film was built upon a musical score with no words. My actors don’t speak in the film because the music does all the speaking. Fortunately, my composer approved permission to use her work in my film and I am forever grateful. Michelle McGlaughlin is an amazing talent that our world loves dearly. She has been featured in Rolling Stone; her albums have topped the New Age Billboard Charts; she has had over 1.5 billion spins on Pandora in addition to numerous award she has won for her work. She is known as a ‘musical story teller’ which is why I fell in love with her work immediately. “Spiritual Awakening” turned out to be the song I used as the musical score to my short film.
The film was entered into numerous film festival competitions worldwide, and was covered by our local newspapers and news stations. It still has yet to be released to the public, however I am planning on releasing it within the next year- stay tuned! The film has its own website and trailer if you would like to check it out!
www.survivingcovidnineteentheshortfilm.weebly.com
OFFICIAL TRAILER:
https://youtu.be/iH0lhGnI7FI
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
A story from my journey that illustrates my resilience is definitely when I decided to formalize my business design. Covid had impacted my world significantly in so many ways, but I chose to not be debilitated by its impact. In fact, I used its impact to fuel a business design that I had had in the works for some years, but never really took seriously.
Thanks to Covid, I began building my private practice-Viani’s Performing Arts Academy- to be able to serve and train those who were also impacted by the pandemic. I wanted to provide a means to our performing arts community to continue their training in the performing arts when training was hard to come by. VPAA became a refuge for artists still looking to perform and train.
There have been so many obstacles that I have learned to overcome in my lifetime, and the pandemic certainly has been one that I will probably remember for the rest of my life. One thing I learned about myself is that I am more resilient than I give myself credit. I also learned about myself that I can do anything I set my mind to- even if it is a craft I have never had experience in doing whatsoever. I have never been one to back down to a challenge. One way or another, I find a way to overcome and succeed through that challenge. I learned so many things about myself, and am proud to say that Viani’s Performing Arts Academy is still developing and expanding each and every week- thanks to Covid!
I have to tell you, I have auditioned in some of the most intimidating environments you could ever imagine as a professional dancer, and have emerged successful, with a resume that proves it. Never let anyone tell you ‘No’ or ‘You Can’t’ or ‘You’re Not Good Enough’. You can achieve anything you believe- you just need to believe in yourself, work hard, and persevere through the tough stuff.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.vianisperformingartsacademy.com
- Instagram: kaseyviani and. vianis_performing_arts_academy
- Facebook: Kasey Viani. and Viani’s Performing Arts Academy
- Linkedin: Kasey Viani
- Youtube: Kasey Viani
- Yelp: Viani’s Performing Arts Academy
- Other: www.survivingcovidnineteentheshortfilm.weebly.com