Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Laura Mendes. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Laura, thanks for joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I was a very active kid. Growing up I used to be a swimmer before I was a dancer. Being physical has been the most tangible way to understand that I am a living being. Therefore, deep down, I’ve always known that I wanted to live a life in motion; With my body in motion, because that’s when I feel alive and at peace. However, even with sports and swimming, I felt something lacking from a very young age, I told my mom I didn’t want to swim anymore and instead, I wanted to sign up for Ballet lessons and Jazz classes in a small studio near home.
To this day I don’t know if I found Dance or if Dance made its way to find me, all I know is, since my trial class, I felt complete after all. Dance was (and still is) the one thing in my life that allowed me to be wild yet connected to something deeper and meaningful. I feel blessed that my path with artistry was very vocational, as the years went by I loved to dance even more, and I worked harder each day because the rush of it felt good, I wanted to be the greatest kid in that studio because there was this voice inside of me saying that I could do it and that I was built to nothing but greatness.
The thing about dance is that it makes you mature fast, it teaches a level of independence and self-reflection that most people take a lifetime to achieve. At 15 I was emancipated from my parents so I could, as a minor, travel alone for dance competitions, or film a commercial and be able to get paid for my dancing. It was almost like the choice was made for me, it came to a point that I didn’t see myself doing anything other than my craft, or being anything other than an artist.
Choosing to pursue a career in arts is the bravest thing one can do because it’ll never be an easy way. Nevertheless, I found in my teen years that Dance was the most fulfilling way, and I wanted to earn my livelihood with it. The inner voice that told me not to give up never went away and I don’t think it ever will.

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?

I’m a professional dancer from Brazil, trained in all dance disciplines, including Classical Ballet, Contemporary, Jazz, Musical Theater, Modern, Improvisation, Gaga Technique, Forsythe Technique, and choreography composition. I started with Ballet lessons at 4 but took a step back so I could join the swimming team in my town back home. After realizing that just the physicality wasn’t enough and that I craved the artistic side of me, I came back dancing. Throughout my education in dance, I started competing across Brazil at the tender age of 10. I was given a second-place overall trophy for my solo performance at Joinville Dance Festival (World’s Largest Dance Festival, a Guinness Book title it has held since 2005). At age 17, I received early acceptance to Joffrey Ballet School as a merit scholarship student and graduated in the prestigious Pre-professional Program.
At Joffrey, I had the privilege to work with many distinguished faculty including Antonia Franceschi and Michael Cusumano. Besides, I was honored to perform works by Yin Yue, and Greg Lau. I was also a member of the Joffrey Ballet Concert Group (an acclaimed student-only performance group) directed by Bradley Shelver. While in Concert Group, I had the opportunity to perform a world premiere by Omar Roman de Jesus, who recently won a Princess Grace Award in Choreography.
Some other extracurricular experiences include my featured moment at a New York Fashion Week event at SOHO House directed by Angelica Stiskin, performing with the cast of HAMILTON for the Playbill Pride Event under the direction of Thayne Jasperson, and an appearance on the unveiling video of Amazon Prime’s “The Wheel of Time” choreographed by Maleek Washington.
I worked on stage, in film, and in commercials. Currently, I’m a company member with Visceral Dance Chicago under the direction of Nick Pupillo. As a dancer with Visceral, I performed works by award-winning choreographers, such as Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, Roderick George, and by Pupillo himself. Additionally, I joined NK//COLLAB as Noelle’s Kayser Artistic Associate.
I have been the only dancer in a commercial for the global lead on hair care brand, Pantene. I was also the lead dancer on a fashion campaign film for FARM Rio, and that’s when I was lucky enough to work with director Ariela Dorf, winner of a Cannes Lions prize.
I was awarded a full scholarship for the Summer Program at Nederlands Dans Theater. My participation in the program was acclaimed in a video, produced to capture a day in life during my time in the Netherlands.
I also love teaching, I’m part of the Ballet Faculty at Visceral Dance Center. Besides giving ballet technique classes, I choreograph for the students’ recitals and give private lessons, coaching aspiring dancers, on their solos for major competitions such as the Youth American Grand Prix and/or college auditions. I also have taught masterclasses in performing arts high schools such as Culver Academies and Paula Aubrey School of Dance.

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

Personally, the most rewarding thing about being an artist is the very fact that we are direct agents of transformation. At the end of the day, humanity relies on and needs artists to connect with something. It doesn’t matter if it is live art, books, paintings, music, cinema, or even television, people use and crave art to be understood and to feel a sense of belonging. Therefore, the moment I perform for an audience, I know I have to dance so that, in some capacity, whoever is watching leaves differently than they came in. No one but us artists experience, firsthand, the extreme work put on during the process. However, when the show is done and people come to talk to me about how it made them reflect on their own lives, see things from a different perspective, or it brought suppressed emotions to the surface, or put a smile on their faces, all the work is worth it. Those multiple moments of human connection between dancer/choreographer, dancer/audience, and dancer within ourselves or our peers, are the most rewarding. Those are the moments that remind me of the importance of what I do for a living, and the importance of art in general to move people into creating a better, less lonely, world.
Besides, there is this certain fulfillment that life, as an artist and a creative being, can never get boring, it’s always something new. Mainly as a dancer, my craft is essentially ephemeral. This means that once a piece is being performed or a step executed in class, out in time and space it can never be done the same way again or be seen in the same way. That kind of forces us to make peace and befriend the unknown, because it’s a field where you can never predict what will happen, each performance will be different, the audience will be different each show, and the body behaves differently each day, so on, that’s the beauty of it.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Even tho I was trained in multiple styles, I truly grew up in a classical ballet base, with a strong focus on mastering the technique. Which, unfortunately, comes along with an outdated classical ballet mindset of aiming and striving for perfection. And the pressure of it really didn’t combine well with my already strong personality of wanting to be the best I can be at all times. All female-identified dancers I know have been through this dilemma, since we were kids we were taught what “perfection” looks like, body-wise and dancing-wise. I had this specific ballet teacher who, even tho im so grateful for the wisdom shared, convinced me I wasn’t good enough and never would be. It was a very delicate moment in my life in which I starved and exhausted my body and doubted my talents in search of this unachievable perfection. And that’s what no one told me til later in my career: that perfection is a flawed concept simply because humans are fundamentally flawed. Furthermore, by nature, there is not a single body identical to another, it is then nonsensical to define what’s right or wrong based on an individual.
Therefore, I had to unlearn and unleash myself from having perfection as the ultimate goal and instead enjoy dance for what it is, an ancient full-body-soul experience that is undeniably good. Knowing that my best self will look different each day and that’s alright.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lauramendes.godaddysites.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauramendesdanc/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkVjJ7_7CVM&t=3s

Image Credits
Michelle Reid, Kaytee Miller, Paul (the thief of time), Corey Hayes, Sacha Grootjans