Conversations with Kristy Beauvais

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristy Beauvais.

Hi Kristy, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
It all started with dance at the age of three. Haven’t stopped dancing since. I always knew that I had to get out of the South and into The Big Apple if I was going to have a career as a performing artist. I was born in New Orleans. I taught at my Mom’s dance studio since the age of 11. I know that sounds young, but I was quite the little girl grown-up. My Mom needed help in more ways than one, so I grew up pretty fast. I went to high school in Slidell, and every day at lunch, I drove to New Orleans to attend performing arts high school. I got to go to the school where many of our jazz greats graduated. I was able to work with some pretty awesome choreographers in professional theatre gigs around New Orleans during my high school years. A couple of them had ties to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, so I was able to get referred by people on the inside. I booked my audition and ended up with a full scholarship to the Tisch Dance Dept. I graduated with a BFA in 1991. I spent 11 years in NYC.

During this time, I performed professionally as a contemporary dancer, a musical theatre performer, a butoh dancer, a puppeteer, a touring live theatre host, and as an actor, onstage and in independent films. But NYC got expensive. Too expensive for my avant-garde theatre career. And I guess the hustle was getting to me. So, in 1999, after many a Brooklyn apartment, I moved to Los Angeles. I needed the change, and sunshine was exactly what the doctor ordered. I met my husband the first week I landed. We began working creatively immediately. Dating happened pretty immediately, as well. In 2003, we got married, had a baby, and opened FOCUSfish. And now FOCUSfish is in its 20th year… so is my marriage.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’m sure it’s not surprising to hear that my challenges as an artist have been largely financial. Aside from the many restaurant and bartending jobs I had in NYC, I’ve managed to survive on my teaching skills. Since moving to LA and starting the 501c3 not-for-profit FOCUSfish, I have found very rewarding ways to not only feed myself but make a difference in the communities we move in. But starting a non-profit is not an easy task. Building an effective board, and maintaining that; and raising money is not easy. I get it. There’s a lot in this world that needs our attention and funds. But we have managed to make it to our 20th year and survive COVID. And even though my husband had to build his own career in construction to keep our family afloat, he has always been my partner at FOCUSfish, helping us to bob and weave during the most challenging of times. I am very proud to say that this continued creativity, albeit for mostly children and non-professionals, has kept my choreographic and director juices flowing.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
What has always excited me about performing arts is the blending of disciplines and talents. I never wanted to just be a ballerina, even though I was classically trained. Well, my body type helped me to make that decision to be well-rounded, so to speak. With a strong, able body, I can do so much more than just one thing. I can take Capoeira to be more acrobatic and grounded. I can learn core techniques in Pilates and Gyrotonic to mobilize and foster fluidity. I can not only teach dance, but I can teach improvisation, exercise classes, and other hybrid workout experiences. I guess what I’m getting at is I could’ve opened a dance studio like my Mom and probably would’ve made more money. But I was bored with that model and wanted to do something different. When we opened FOCUSfish, we had a new baby and wanted that baby with us.

We wanted to create an experience where whole families could workout together and spend more quality time together with the arts. When people visited our FOCUSfish space in Hollywood, it attracted the most talented artists. Artists who had unique gifts and who wanted to get involved with what we were doing. The next thing you know, we had aerial silks and trapezes hanging from our ceilings. And the FOCUSfish Flying Circus was born. Yea, so now I am a circus curator. Never saw that one coming. But what FOCUSfish did was become a circus environment that invited EVERY BODY into its whimsical world. Not just those who wanted to join the circus, like Cirque du Soleil. But those who just wanted to workout in new and exciting ways and appreciated the challenges that circus arts brings. So, we established a way of teaching circus that was accessible and fun yet still rooted in technique.

This whimsical, artsy, fun environment has pervaded all that FOCUSfish does in schools and communities. It is our approach to fitness and theatre. But it came from my desire for this in my own professional life.

So, in addition to class formats, I was also a personal trainer all these years. I was never the trainer that trained sexy actors to do lunges and crunches. I always worked with clients with special requests and needs. For instance, the baseball player who only wanted stretch workouts; the Mom with the broken foot; the elderly woman with Parkinson’s, the wealthy woman who didn’t want to leave her house; the child in the wheelchair, the aging EGOT…

I was the personal trainer of a very famous woman. I became her trainer in her final years. It was a truly enlightening experience that was VERY CHALLENGING at times. But that relationship brought me to a place in my own artistic development that I had no idea was happening. You see, when she passed, all of the stories came rushing out of me. Every time I worked with her, something either glorious or downright abusive would happen. It was always something to report into my voice memos after each workout. Well, these stories became the impetus to my solo show that brought me back into my professional performing career. I am so proud to say that my first solo show, that I wrote and performed in solo festivals in LA and NYC, got the attention of past directors and writers I worked with in my early days. And now I am happy to say I am assistant directing, choreographing, and starring in a show that has started in Maine and working its way to NYC. And I am developing and starring in a new live show that is going to the Edinburgh Festival next year. Both pieces require me to do what I do best, tell my story through dance.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Now that I’ve written and performed my one-woman show, there’s very little people do not know about me. Haha! I know I look strong, but I’m quite the delicate flower.

I grew up with so much stress in my life (another article, another day) that I developed what doctors called epilepsy. I weened myself off of Phenobarbital when I moved to NYC and never looked back. And never had a seizure again.

I’m also deathly allergic to pine nuts. I like to tell everyone that. Even my friends, I thought knew that. Well, for obvious reasons, I like everyone to know… so they don’t feed them to me.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.focusfish.com
• Instagram: @kristyfocusfishbeauvais
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Focusfish
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVWlWTYypDY1fcCP0TKNmw

Image Credits
Bill Axell (colorful family shot), Kamakshi Hart (black and white sitting on chair), Joey Kassabian