Daily Inspiration: Meet Arden Harris

Today we’d like to introduce you to Arden Harris.

Hi Arden, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Born in Chicago, IL, I started taking west African dance lessons at my nearest community center for only several months at the age of four. Although this was the only form of dance I would do for many years following, I continued to venture into new hobby after new hobby such as cheerleading, soccer, horseback riding, camping, etc. Although over the years I continued to foster my love of dance through teaching myself routines from music videos and live concerts that I would see, many years passed until I stepped back into a dance classroom setting. My freshman year of high school I joined my school’s contemporary dance club where we would practice three times in the morning every week before school. Even though this was a huge commitment (I would have to wake up at 3/4am several times a week to make our 6a rehearsals) I had not yet found my love for dance then the way that I did several years later and I continued to fill my time with other extracurricular activities such as student council, track and field, softball, basketball, etc. To answer your question, Yes! I’ve been a busy person since birth.

After switching high schools my Junior year of high school due to my first school closing, I was somehow convinced that Track and Field was what I wanted to do with my life after high school and this is what I wanted to pursue as a career while studying music in college and this path is what I started to put all of my energy into. My junior year I began to realize I had time to refocus on my passion for dance where I began to take classes in Chicago in the After School Matters program called HiDef under Tanji Harper. It wasn’t until I joined this program that I began to met and realize that dance could not only be an actual profession but an accessible one at that. In HiDef I began to study genres of dance I only saw on TV such as Hip Hop, Dancehall, Jazz, etc. I also began looking into colleges that offered both in a way that would help my advancement in not only track but in music as well. I quickly began to realize I only wanted to pursue one of these and seemingly choose Music instead.

I went to College for Contemporary Urban and Pop music with a minor focus in Music Management, all while venturing into event planning and dance on the side. Although college, I slowly began to focus more and more on dance to the point that I began to be looked at as the dancer in the Vocal department it wasn’t until then that I realized I wanted to dance as my career. But since I was already in school for music I decided to see that through to get my degree and ultimately move to New York to not only get a free start but to also brighten my horizons as a dancer.

Moving to New York solidified my decision to follow dance. Not only did I find that I have a love for it that didn’t exist for anything else that I had focused on before but I also saw that community that dance began to bring me. A year after moving to New York I felt ready to start auditioning for talent agencies and luckily I got signed after my first audition to Clear Talent NY. This was my first introduction to the dance industry as I know it today. However, my excitement came to a haul in 2020 as the pandemic began. Since I was newly signed and fresh to NY at the time, I didn’t get to do much as a dancer throughout the pandemic however, my friends kept me busy from filming personal projects of theirs to assisting them for their classes, I thankfully got to continue to dance through it all.

Over the past several years I had been traveling back and forth to LA from Chicago and NY. I never found a want to move there until I took my longest trip there (consisting of three months) at the end of 2021. During this trip I not only got to see the industry from a different viewpoint but I got to see where I could honestly find a place for myself in an industry I had been trying to understand how to navigate for the past 4 years at this point. It was during the end of 2021 that I began to get the resource to present myself as a more professional dancer than I had ever before by getting new Headshots, taking classes from different teachers, putting myself in new environments for me to be seen more, etc. In Jan 2022, I booked my first high-caliber job as a dancer at the Superbowl and it has only been up from there. After that performance, I went back to New York with the goal of moving to LA by that summer, and that was exactly what I have done. Since then I have signed with Clear Talent on both coasts, performed at the Bet Awards with Doechii and Performed at the VMAs with Anitta. Both accomplishments a year ago I could only dream about doing but were now my reality.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
This journey has been everything but smooth. I don’t come from a background that is privy to how this industry works and so I relied heavily on my intuition and the friends that I made along the way to help me navigate to get me to where I am today. Three months before being booked for the SuperBowl, I was dropped by my talent agency. I was devastated and frustrated at the time and didn’t know how to navigate my next steps but I didn’t want to lose the momentum that I had created before the pandemic. The pandemic was another obstacle that didn’t not make my journey easy.. After moving to New York, I began to build a lot of momentum in the community, however, the pandemic put all of that to a halt and left me confused as to what was next. Luckily I still got to dance with my friends and learn as time went on but I had to quickly make up for lost time after quarantine was over to ensure I kept up my skill level and momentum for the opportunities that presented themself after.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
If you would have asked me this question several years ago I would have described myself as just a dancer and that is what I am known for but since then I have fully stepped into the idea that I am so much more. I am a well-rounded Artist with concentrations in, but not limited to vocal performance and dance. I have a passion for event planning and childhood development and during my time in New York, I often combined my passion for all of this and began to make a career out of it. I am proud of not only my work ethic but my ability to stay open and receptive to other paths in life. I have realized that I don’t have to just stick to one thing or let others define what I should be based off of their knowledge of me. One thing that has set me apart from others time and time again is my focus for allowing my life outside of my art to hold as much weight as in my life as my art does. Meaning, I make sure that I have other have frequent life experiences outside of the arts that I often pull from to incorporate in my career on the daily because I fully believe my career is just as important to me as my life outside of my career. Both experiences help create the well-rounded person that I am today and I would be doing myself a disservice to put more effort into one more than the other.

Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
Of course. One of the most important things I’ve learned due to Covid-19 was who I am as a human. I’ve previously spoken about this but really spending time with yourself and getting to know my ins and outs really helped me know what next steps to take as time went on and really helped me trust that I was always making the right decision no matter how difficult it may have felt as the time but to ultimately know that I was always making the best next step for myself whether it was about my career, a hobby I currently had or wanted to get into, or something for my personal life.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arden_rey/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFJbFKVoOW6VUoFk4CyJ6Sg