Today we’d like to introduce you to Jasmine Albuquerque.
Hi Jasmine, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I started dancing at nine. I grew up on a mountain and never had a ride home so I would follow my friend to her ballet class and quickly became enthralled. From ballet, I moved to jazz and then eventually, contemporary, which I studied for the first time in Budapest where I lived as a 19 years old.
Upon returned to LA, I met Ryan Heffington and was completely magnetized to his style and started performing under his guidance learning psycho dance and how to perform at odd hours of the night in odd places of Los Angeles with very little room to move. This was the beginning of my training and understanding of how to be raw and unforgiving as a performer. How to possibly have an out of body experience or go to a state of past lives while dancing. It completely changed who I am and opened a vein in me that I will never shut down. From there, I co-founded WIFE, an interactive projection-based dance company that used projection mapping to tell stories of myth, destruction and femininity. The three of us, Nina McNeely, Kristin Leahy and I performed all over Los Angeles as well as abroad in Istanbul and England. WIFE also changed my life and gave me a new understanding of limitations and confinement in dance. I have been teaching dance for almost twenty years and continue to choreograph for live shows, music videos and commercials. Dance is my passion. He continues to eat me whether I like It or not.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Definitely not. Dance is third on Forbes list of worst jobs. There were so many moments where I did not get paid nearly what I deserved or where I was not even credited for choreographing an entire commercial. One director told me I was ruining his entire shoot. The pressure can be insanely difficult to handle not to mention the constant rejection or people expecting you to just dance whenever. Many people do not understand this discipline and how much work goes into becoming a dancer. At times, they can treat you like a circus animal. It requires a very thick skin.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
At this point in my life, I am mostly a choreographer. I have danced my whole life but now I focus on creating dances. Most of the pieces I create are dark but they tend to tell another story, they show the many sides of human behavior and they allow the performers to find ugliness, to let go of perfection. I am abstract and somewhat poetic in the way I move. I believe in unraveling and I love taking the dancer out of dancers and helping them discover how to be human again. I suppose all this sets me apart from others who are often striving for perfection and complete uniformity. I love the individual. I love when things fall apart, when someone messes up, I love the unexpected. Perhaps I am most proud of performing 16,000 feet in the air in the salt flats in Bolivia for a film for my mother. There are many more aspects of my career that I am proud of but that one was surreal.
What’s next?
I am wide open at this point. I hope to choreograph more in Europe and to create a piece with many many bodies, something I have not tried yet. I don’t know really what the future holds but I think it is better that way. I like surprises.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jasminealbuquerque.com
- Instagram: @jasminealbuquerque
- Other: https://drive.google.com/file/d/195FIh44TeU9i9D3J8Q3XA1kK7rw7K_MC/view?usp=sharing
Image Credits:
Mark Escribano Sam Kweskin Tricia Taper
