We were lucky to catch up with Vinicius And Bruna Romani recently and have shared our conversation below.

Vinicius and Bruna, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

When my husband and I made the decision to leave behind our regular jobs and financial stability to join an arts company in Brazil as volunteers almost 10 years ago, we began to understand art as being more than just performances, but a powerful tool of development and transformation. The mission of this company we joined was to raise funds to support social projects around the world, in Brazil, India, and Angola, and, through the artistic efforts, we were able to provide education and daily meals to over 1000 children, along with other projects.

This experience made us realize we wanted to do this for the rest of our lives: use art as a tool for social and community transformation. When we moved to the United States, in partnership with MSBN Church, we started the StandArt Center, a performing arts program built on principles of diversity, accessibility, cultural identity, and human development, creating an environment where students can grow socially, physically, and cognitively while connecting with their cultures through art and learning values they will carry throughout life. Many of our students are children of immigrants, navigating two cultures, learning a new language, and often lacking access to artistic spaces where they could feel seen, safe, and connected. We teach ballet, jazz, and drama classes for children ages 3 to 15 and adults, including neurodivergent students, helping them develop emotional regulation, confidence, coordination, social skills, and a sense of belonging.

In addition, the program helps sustain other initiatives around the world, such as “Somos Arte MSBN”, a project in Colombia that uses manual art as a source of income for families in vulnerable situations. MSBN is currently present in 34 countries across 4 continents, maintaining initiatives that provide education, food, and basic assistance to children and families in need.

During our careers as artists, we were part of a lot of meaningful projects, but I’d say that the most meaningful one is the one we are developing right now, where we get to witness the good this environment does for our students. StandArt Center represents the art that can restore identity, build community, open doors, and change futures. It is meaningful because the purpose is in every child who discovers their voice through art.

Vinicius and Bruna, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I, Bruna, have been a dance teacher since I was 19. I started in a social arts project of a small town in Brazil, working with low-income families and children, and that’s when my passion for teaching began. Throughout my career, I danced for professional companies, such as DEA Cia das Danças, was part of the creative team of awarded musicals in Brazil, directed a children’s play department, and taught dance to all kinds of people. Vinicius is an actor, singer, songwriter, screenwriter, director, and drama teacher. We often say that our story is proof of how art can bring two lives together with the same purpose. We met through the theater and, since then, we’ve been working together. A fun fact about us is that my first career choice was in marketing, and Vinicius graduated as a civil engineer. For a while, I was working in the office, and I loved it, but deep down, we always knew we had a bigger purpose in our lives. Even in other professions, dance and theatre were always part of our lives somehow, until the day we realized the time had come to do this full-time. It wasn’t easy at first, as artists, we face many challenges, the lack of stability in a really competitive industry, but what drove us was to know our art wasn’t just for us, but to reach people and make a difference somehow.

Today, we direct Standart Center in Atlanta/GA, a program under MSBN Church that teaches children and adults ballet, jazz, and acting. In addition, we have seasonal performances of musical plays from our company, where all of our members are volunteers, most with no previous experience in performing arts, but with a passion to learn and grow, and is amazing to be able to give this opportunity for them, and dance festivals for our students to perform and show their progress, while being able to experience the stage.

I specialized in psychomotricity and neurodevelopment to be able to assist atypical students as well, using dance and drama classes as an auxiliary tool for therapeutic resources. Through the performing arts classes, we can help them with emotional regulation, social skills, motor development, such as global coordination, balance, laterality, and other skills that our students will not only use in class, but they will carry for life. I know that what we are doing today will shape them for the future adult they will become.

The program is completing its second year, and during this time, we have heard some feedback from the parents. One that stuck with me was from a really shy girl who took her first drama class, and the mom told us she came home saying that she felt something different in her heart, something she had never felt before, mentioning that she not only had fun, but could connect with other people her age and with her emotions. It’s truly beautiful to see them overcoming their fear to perform in front of an audience, gaining confidence, and knowing they can be part of something big, that they are capable of doing everything they put their minds to. I remembered another girl who was really scared to perform, and after she left the stage, she started crying, saying, “I did it! I really did it!” The joy she felt I can’t explain.

We are affiliated with CID – International Dance Council, to provide them certificates with worldwide validation. This is why we do what we do: it’s not only writing music and scripts, directing plays, teaching and leading a classroom, it’s about building connections, making them believe in themselves, give them an opportunity to grow, and also a career option. If you wanna know more about us, you can check our website: standartcenter.com, and also our social medias: @brunafeitosa @vinnibeni. We post a bit of everything around there, feel free to connect with us to keep up with this journey :)

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

When it comes to teaching children, I see that often ballet teachers are not ready to deal with classroom challenges because they are not trained in child development or pedagogy. Most of them are dancers who started teaching, like I was at first, and we used to think that only the ballet technique is important, but especially in the younger ages, 3 to 6 years, dance knowledge is not even the main skill we need to have.
Everything changed for me when I realized I needed to understand child development, motor skills, and how a child’s brain works and develops. They need to be stimulated properly, and dance can do so much for their growth! We just need to present it properly.

When I started my studies in psychomotricity, I realized that everything we teach in dance can fit into a psychomotor skill, like balance, laterality, tonus, global and fine motor skills, rhythm, and space notion. Now, I’m able to create a curriculum for my students that prepares them for the technical issues of ballet, and also serves as a source of development in different areas. In the pedagogy aspect, the classes are more fun, dynamic, and assertive. Not all of them will be professional dancers, but I’m preparing the hands of a doctor, the brains of an engineer, the logic and problem-solving of an entrepreneur.

What really made a difference for me was to see beyond the aspects of dance, but to research human development and how those worlds are connected. So, if I have one piece of advice, it would be to keep studying as much as you can, everything related to the area you aim to pursue. Constant growth is the key.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

We often hear how competitive and elitist the dance world can be, and I had a few teachers in my career who corroborate this thought. One in particular said that girls with my body type would never make into a professional company. This haunted me for a while, I had eating issues, problems with my weight. I used to think I would never be thin enough, or good enough, until I met my former director, Andrea Sposito, who not only believed in me and in my dance, but created such a positive, collaborative environment among her dancers that made me feel strong, confident, and free to dance again. She used to say that dance is energy and power. That’s how I felt dancing for her.

I feel that a lot of times dance is portrayed as a place for rivalry and jealousy, when in my experience in the professional dance companies I had been in, my fellow dancers were actually cheering for one another, we wanted everybody to do good, and in fact, it’s just another place of work, like every other, where you have to be professional and polite if you want to suceed. There’s too much dramatization and glamourization in the movies and series we see, when the reality is hard work and focused.

I feel that from this situation, we can take two main lessons: what a teacher says to their students marks their lives, and it’s up to us, the new generation of art teachers and directors, to shape what we expect from the future of dance, acting, etc., in terms of work environment. What I teach my students is that you don’t have to compete or fit in some mold someone said you should fit, you only have to be the best you can be, keep up with the discipline, and focus on your goals.
If we want healthier, respectful and diverse environments, we have to teach them these values. We are getting there, learning how to value people and real art, made from the heart.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://standartcenter.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/standartcenter
• Other: We also have the social media of our mission headquarters:
  Website: semeadores.com / instagram.com/msbnatlanta / youtube.com/msbntube (where you can watch some of our Easter and Christmas plays) / instagram.com/msbn_missions and the project instagram.com/somosartecol

Image Credits

Msbn Atlanta Photography / Somos Arte MSBN Colombia Archives