Meet Brandon “BrandElsa” Wagner of Haus Of Elevation in South LA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brandon “BrandElsa” Wagner.

Brandon “BrandElsa”, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My journey into the arts began in high school when I auditioned for the Spring musical during my freshman year. I got cast and remained connected to the theatre department for all four years. When the time came to attend the University of California, Riverside I was set to pursue a degree in science working toward becoming a veterinarian, a childhood dream shared by many 7-year-olds. After my first term and taking a college-level theatre course, I realized my heart would always belong to the stage. So I switched my major, consequentially losing a $16,000 scholarship, and began to work toward a theatre arts degree. Before my junior year in started in 2009, I auditioned at Disneyland (for the third time) and got hired as a parade performer and spent the next four years amassing skills including puppetry and stilt walking. In 2014, just as Frozen was beginning its global takeover, I let go of Disneyland and embarked on a nine-month contract with Disney Cruise Line. I spent four more years with the Mouse in a floating hotel and visiting places I had only dreamed of including, Alaska, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Panama Canal.

After my 6th contract with the company, I found my way to another big player in family entertainment, Sesame Street Live! This was incredible, it was similar to the work I had spent the last four years of my life doing except on land and with constant cell reception. I got to travel around the nation portraying the ICONIC Big Bird alongside Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Grover at the height of Sesame Street’s 50th-anniversary celebration! And let me tell you when an arena of toddlers first see Elmo, it’s comparable to a Beyoncé concert but way cuter. Although our tour was cut short due to the pandemic, the memories made and lessons learned on the road are pivotal in getting me to where I am today.

As stay-at-home orders lengthened and it seemed Sesame Street Live wasn’t reopening anytime soon, I started to question my identity and worth as a person without their job/work to define them. Many days were spent in a lackluster mental fog while scrolling through social media. I needed to create because at my core, that’s who I am. I started this 100 Day Project in April where I challenged myself to make a short video every day about anything. As the project went on, my content began to take on a motivational aspect along with getting comfortable sharing my “authentic” self during the quarantine. I started to lose steam about halfway through when I turned to friends and family asking if they would be interested in having a Zoom conversation and they would share themselves and I would be there to celebrate them as well as discuss their various perspectives on life. Toward the end of the project, I felt this shift/call inside of me acknowledging my gift of motivation and ability to almost instantly connect with people from all over, and the idea of becoming a life coach popped into my mind and staked a claim.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Any obstacles that stood in my way were all consequences not being true to myself.

When I was younger, I didn’t have the vocabulary and understanding of LGBTQ+ culture that I do now, nor did I have examples of it when it came to exploring my own identity. But when I entered college under the guise of a science major, I did so because I was more concerned about being the “perfect child” my mother could be proud of. It has taken some time, therapy, and understanding of myself to know that I was pushing myself further into the closet by living my life only for someone else’s approval. Once I began to accept my sexuality that provided the impetus to make sure I was being as honest in other aspects of my life, including pursuing the career I wanted.

Please tell us about Haus Of Elevation.
Haus of Elevation is my quarantine brainchild!

The name came from a stilt-walking event I did in summer 2019 performing for the FX show “POSE” during LA Pride. It was what the team called ourselves, but the name always stuck with me.

Fast forward to 2020 and I have come to approach stilt walking as not only an incredibly spectacular art form but a great metaphor for how I approach life. When I’m performing an extra three feet in the air, I carry myself differently. I feel differently. I know that all eyes are on me and my presence is commanding. I’m able to embody these same emotions when on the ground and I believe that these skills can be taught to others.

Haus of Elevation is a life coaching/motivational speaking company focused on helping people realize and reach their highest level. Although the life coaching aspect happens digitally through Zoom, there is an in-person component in the works of delivering motivational speeches…from 9 feet in the air! I’m imparting my wisdom to others who see me living my best life up there and who want to “get on my level”! I’m helping to lift them up so although they might not be physically on stilts, they can feel like it whenever they want!

This past Labor Day, I held my first pop-up performance in my neighborhood where I set up some speakers, baked some cupcakes, and just invited anyone to come outside and enjoy a socially distant stilt show during a time when joy seems harder to find right outside your door.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I don’t think I would want to start over, I believe everything happens for a reason and I’m exactly where I need to be having been through exactly what I’ve been through.

My mission now is to reach people, specifically LGBTQ+ youth, and show them that the first step in achieving your dreams is to wake up to the reality of who they truly are. Once they’ve done that, they are unstoppable.

I guess that’s something I wish I had come into knowing before I did, however, I’m only 31 but I know there are some people older than me still sleeping on their own greatness.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.BrandonCWagner.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/HausOfElevation
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/HausOfElevation

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