Meet JP Stanley

Today we’d like to introduce you to JP Stanley.

Thanks for sharing your story with us JP. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I tried everything as a kid – soccer, baseball, basketball, golf, karate, cheerleading, gymnastics, horseback riding – but none of it made me as happy as the arts. I grew up acting as a young boy, all the way until around middle school. In middle school, I went to a summer sleep-away camp where my favorite camp counselor was teaching a dance class. Clearly obliged to my favorites, I signed up for his dance class and instantly fell in love. Once the summer camp came to a halt, I immediately told my mom I want to dance. She had absolutely no idea what that meant or entailed, but we went for it – headfirst. Six years later, I was training at the Orlando Ballet School, competing at the national level, and debating making this ‘hobby’ a career. I originally decided to pursue the college route. I was accepted into multiple universities for dance – FSU, PACE, NYU, etc. I ultimately chose PACE and went to my summer orientation. At orientation, I immediately got a gut instinct that this wasn’t where I was meant to be and as I spent my day and night at orientation, this only confirmed my suspicion.

I met with my mom the next day and told her I wanted to move to Los Angeles, a city I had never been to, but one I’ve dreamed of since I was a child. With a little convincing and a lot of love, I packed my bags and drove myself to Los Angeles in August after my senior year without knowing anyone or anything about LA. Within the first month of moving to LA, I was fortunate enough to have been signed with the Bloc Talent Agency. I started auditioning, assisting, and finding work anywhere I could. I began assisting one of my friends, who was a very established international choreographer and teacher and fell in love with teaching. I started pursuing my own teaching opportunities and knew this was a part of who I was meant to be. I ended up choreographing a music video, as well as choreographing for a professional dance company in SoCal. I started getting teaching and choreographing offers in other states, and eventually internationally.

At one point, I was teaching so much out of state, people started asking me if I was from Canada. I later came into contact with a couple who ran a platform that hosted a multitude of dance and acting workshops for kids 5-18. They approached me with this idea of starting a new workshop for children that would give them the opportunity to learn the new world of multimedia, while also getting to develop their own artistic voice. They just had no idea how to do it or what to do. I accepted the challenge and launched a six-month journey that took me into so many things I wasn’t even prepared for. I began building curriculums, event planning, interviewing, hiring, building teams, managing teams, building brand books, designing marketing, constructing websites, developing user interface… so many things that I had never dreamed could come my way. I learned through the entire process. Finally, after six months, I flew to their headquarters and pitched to their entire team. The pitch was a success.

They loved the idea. We immediately began launching into development, went into holding workshops, building our multimedia platform, etc. After about a year of helping build the groundwork and establishing their foothold, I left the company. They are still running successfully and functioning to this day! After I really dived into my teaching career, I wanted to try being a dancer for a second. After all, that is why I moved here. I joined the Los Angeles Opera as a dancer for a season with the show, Tales of Hoffman. I danced with a couple of different ballet companies as leads – a couple of Nutcracker roles, as well as Curly in Oklahoma for the Los Angeles Ballet Academy. Ultimately, I joined a dance company – something I told myself I would never do – and I absolutely fell in love. I joined Clairobscur Dance Company. For eight months, the dancers and I worked with the director to craft and create a 90-minute show. It was truly one of the hardest, but most rewarding experiences of my life.

I also owe that experience to transcending me as a dancer. It brought me from dancing like a young professional, to dancing as a professional adult. I learned intention, control of inertia, intense discipline, self-love, and so many more incredible life lessons. I also met some of the coolest and most incredible people of my life in that company – they became my family. Once I finished my season at the dance company, I was invited to attend an experimental film festival for two works in Virginia – Experimental Film Virginia. Directors from all of the world came to this small town on the Eastern Shore to work with artists from all over the world and create 15 short films in two weeks…. sounds pretty crazy right? Overcome by my Pisces’ desire to escape reality, I absolutely agreed. it was one of the BEST things I have ever agreed to. I highly recommend an artist-in-residency to any artist. Every day, I lived, ate, worked, created, danced, sang, laughed and explored this incredible town with 50 different artists from almost every continent in the world. Needless to say, it was soul-fulfilling.

After the residency, I was itching to get into acting. I had pursued it so much as a child and loved it, but once dance took over my life, acting kind of took a back seat. I felt like I got my teaching foot in the door, and my dancing foot in the door, it was time to get the acting foot in. One of my long-time best friends from the dance world was going to an acting school in Sherman Oaks and she suggested I give it a try seeing I wasn’t to keen on my current acting school. I tried out a class and absolutely fell in love with The Acting Center. I immediately signed up for classes and dove in headfirst. Somewhere in the mix of my story, I switched over agencies to MSA. I was scouted back in 2016 and after much convincing, I agreed to switch. Now that it’s 2019, I can happily say I made the right decision and I’ve been so happy with my agency ever since. I met with my agency and told them I wanted to head in the acting direction and they were happy to support that and begin casting me in that direction.

I began auditioning for acting and started working and just FELL in love. I started doing a myriad of jobs – anything I could get my hands on! I got cast in a commercial for the Mexican Resort Xcaret. I booked a Gucci campaign for their 2019 Spring/Summer Collection. I landed a couple of short films. Worked in some motion capture work for a couple of video games and animated media for a resort in Shanghai. I even got cast as a lead in crime drama podcast – now that was a super fun experience! Ross was a writer at a new company, Rmrkbl, which was started by the producer of Sleep No More. We did an incredible 15,000 sq ft. activation on advertising called ‘Back to the 90s’. It was a campy and hilarious look on the development of online advertising over the past 25 years written and directed by the incredible Ross Tipograph.

Ultimately, one of my biggest dreams came true. I booked a series lead role in a TV Show. It was truly a dream come true moment. So far to this date, we’ve filmed the pilot, which will be out on the internet soon. As for the rest of the season, it is being shopped around and hopefully will be seen on one of your favorite networks or streaming platforms in the near future! Keep an eye out for ‘Working Title!’. Oh yes, it’s called Working Title! (LOL) It’s about a young screenwriter in Los Angeles who is struggling to adult, let alone make it as a screenwriter, and with the help of her two best friends, she makes her way through the day to day struggles of trying to become successful – and not letting your life fall apart. Throughout the years, I’ve been blessed to try a myriad of hats on. I starred in one of my good friends, Brian Leon’s music video. I’ve had the honor of co-directing multiple short films.

This summer, I co-wrote, directed, and starred in my very own short film. Which, that was an incredible learning experience in the most stressful way possible. I continue to teach weekly in LA and all throughout So-Cal. I’m still acting and pursuing bigger and better things every day. It is a constant rotation from dancer to actor to director to choreographer to teacher, but to be completely honest, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Absolutely, there have been struggles along the way. Every day in the entertainment industry is a struggle. Every single day you put yourself out there to be interviewed, looked at, asked to do crazy wild things, and then you get rejected. Every hour of every day of every month in hopes of getting that one yes that makes it all worth it. Truly the biggest obstacle is yourself. Because dealing with all of this stuff – because its just stuff – is the fundamentals of any industry. We all deal with people – people we like, people we hate, – we all administrate, we all work hard, its just life. But, it truly is the everyday push in this career to believe in yourself more than anyone else because you have to convince them your worth believing in.

And if you don’t believe in yourself, how are you going to get someone else to believe that? It’s not letting yourself get in the way either when things don’t go your way. In this industry, you can get rejected for so many reasons that are so beyond your talent. You’re too tall, too skinny, too fat, too pretty, too blonde, too white… whatever it is. You just have to be comfortable with that. Comfortable with knowing your worth does not diminish from a no, and that does not diminish from the 10,000th no. Learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. That is the biggest struggle. Because it’s not a 9-5. So you don’t wake up every day with guaranteed work to see the same guaranteed people at your guaranteed job. It’s getting up every day to say, “Hey, I’m amazing and talented and beautiful and I will be successful” and doing it in a way that’s humble and kind to yourself. Getting interviewed 100 times a day, getting callback 10 times a day, and then getting sent home, just to do it all over again the next day and loving the process – that’s the hardest part. But also the most rewarding one.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
I am self-employed as an actor, dancer, and teacher. I am proud of my business in that I function well in a lot of areas of the arts. As I’ve mentioned before, I truly switch off hats, daily, if not hourly from actor, to dancer, to teacher, to director, to administrator and so on. What sets me apart as a teacher is that all of my work as a teacher is about helping the student be the best version of themselves. A lot of the work in the dance world right now is very centered around social media and whats cool online. Most classes you will find online because they are videotaped and shared. But if every class is videotaped and dancers are always required to be “on-it” at all times and never miss a beat, then where is the class element? Where is the opportunity to fail? And to ultimately grow? I personally believe that element is getting lost, quickly, in class, especially in LA.

As a teacher, I strive to create a safe environment for my dancers to do research for themselves, to find their artistic voice, and believe in it. Especially when I travel to teach at workshops, I lot of the work I do with the dancers goes beyond the studio. So much of the workshop is written and introspective giving the dancers the opportunity to reflect and grow as humans too. In so many of our industries, we separate the human element from ourselves. We define ourselves by what we do. “I’m a lawyer.” “I’m a dancer” “I’m a teacher.” “I’m a doctor.” Whatever it may be, we define ourselves by that. And so often we forget that we’re human and that we were humans before we were any of these things and it is important to take care of this part of yourself and nurture it.

So I think what separates me in a lot of my work, is my need and want to bring humanity and love back into things. I strive to bring it into the artistic process too because it is so easy to overwork and over expect from yourself as artists, that we need reminders to take a moment to give self-love and that will ultimately better our work. The more we better ourselves as individuals, the more we can better our work and through that, better others.

If you had to start over, what would you have done differently?
Nothing. It sounds cliche, but truly nothing. If anything works harder, but even then. Everything I’ve done has gotten me up to the point I am now and why would I want to change that?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://youtu.be/JPwLGjGO9eA
• Phone: 4074700088
• Email: [email protected]

Image Credit:
Lisa Bettencourt Alex Brinson David Muller Phillip Sohn

Suggest a story: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.