We recently connected with Rylen Besler and have shared our conversation below.

Rylen, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

The most meaningful project I worked on was a short film I submitted for Innovate Dance Film Showcase. Having wanted to create videos since I was 13 years old it was really exciting being able to make a project and collaborate with others. I collaborated with filmmakers, Omar Benson and Alexander Decebal-Cuza on this project. It was a fun process finding ways to tell a story through dance. We did run into various obstacles along the way which forced us to get creative in a time crunch and learn as we went along.

My film is called The Exchange it is about the dynamic and complex outcome of two people coming together to care and be cared for – through the process of “The Exchange” we follow a boy that is met with the dance of denial, acceptance and forgiveness.

The project has been well received and the most fulfilling thing I have ever worked on and I look forwarding to doing more projects like this in the future.

Rylen, 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 grew up in a small town called Garson in Manitoba Canada. My mom had put me and my brothers in dance when I was 7 years old. At that time I also played hockey. After a couple years my parents could no longer afford for me to continue to do both sports and I had to choose between the two. We met a new dance studio to discuss options and they told me I needed a new pair of shoes for dance. At age 9 a new pair of shoes sounded awesome and this made my choice easy..dance it was. I started watching dancers from LA online and strived to be just like them. I finally had the opportunity to travel to California and do some training and take some classes. However when covid hit in 2020 that put a stop to that and I felt a bit lost. I decided to turn to social media as that was my only option to continue to grow my career while being stuck at home. Between Youtube, Instagram and TikTok I was able to still share my passions with the world. Incorporating this into my daily routine has allowed me to expand my paths within dance.

As a dancer it’s been hard to stay in one lane, while I like choreograph and create films, I also like to perform light hearted, fun, shortform content, however, I also still want to be a dancer in the industry. At first I didn’t allow myself to explore all those avenues as I didn’t want to be viewed as specific type of dancer but I now am confident enough to truly be myself and present what I am feeling in any season that I’m in throughout my career and my life.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The awesome part of being an creative is watching my visions come to life, as well as bringing people together. When it comes to creating a project the first thing is creating a story and visualizing what I want it to look like. The next step is finding the people I want to be involved. There is no better feeling than having a group of people care about your project and provide their expertise to bring it to life. Being able to make friends while creating cool art is definitely the most rewarding part.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I first started taking social media seriously during covid as this was my only way to keep doing my passion while being stuck at home. I was posting fun dance content on TikTok and I started to gain a following. As things started to open up in the world I continued to to keep sharing and expanded into other platforms. Social media has now become part of my daily work.

The best advice I can give is be consistent and share content that you enjoy creating, without that piece it makes it really hard to stick with it.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rylenbesler/profilecard/?igsh=MTd4b2pxaXRmZG0w
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@rylenandchloe?si=WTC0HIG7RYihXceO
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rylenbesler?_t=8rOeI7XgVxI&_r=1

Image Credits

Nik Thavisone
Clarize Ariza