Meet Steven ‘Guero’ Charles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Steven ‘Guero’ Charles.

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
As a little preface to my dancing career, I remember always being drawn to music and choreography at such a young age. I have videos of me watching shows like Barney and friends when I was younger and being completely consumed in any dancing/musical scenes. My entire family was so baseball/softball oriented that I don’t think dance or music had ever crossed their minds in terms of school or extracurricular activities. Because of this I basically fell into baseball. I played ball for about 12-13 years starting at the age of three and played on and off until about 16 years old. I definitely loved every second of it and still miss it from time to time.

It wasn’t until I was 17 years old when I went to watch the movie You Got Served that I feel like I had an epiphany about wanting to dance, or at least I had enough guts to go and do something about it on my own. I joined a Latin dance company that performed at Quinceañeras (15th birthday parties usually for girls in the Mexican culture). I learned how to dance all Spanish music there and found that I quickly excelled in all choreography and the slightest bit of hip hop infused into the performances. I remember trying to juggle both baseball and dancing at first, but then I found myself thinking about dance and missing the studio out on the field. Eventually, that led to me quitting baseball, which now I know was for good.

From then, I realized I really enjoyed the hip hop aspect of dance and sought out further training in the Houston area. I traveled all over the city to different studios which in turn turned into traveling to different states for dance conventions (Monsters of Hip Hop). In 2012, I decided to make the move from Houston to Los Angeles. Since then I’ve performed in companies such as Dana Foglia Dance, Unity LA, Canvus and have performed alongside musical artists such as Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, Backstreet Boys, and many more.

Currently, I live in Los Angeles as a professional dancer and will make my seven-year LA-versary in August 2019.

Please tell us about your art.
I am a professional dancer. I’ve always aspired to be in music videos and dance on tour; to be on stage in an arena or stadium filled with people who just want to have a good time and escape the madness of the real world for a bit. I remember faces like Shawnette Heard, Nick Bass, Gil Duldulao, and Brian Friedman to name a few, hoping I would one day be able to do what they did.

I hope to inspire anyone too afraid to follow their dreams. In my eyes, the feeling of ‘not knowing’, and stepping out of your comfort zone can feel so scary, especially as an adult. I hope my story can push more people to follow through and take a chance on themselves and their dreams.

As an artist, how do you define success and what quality or characteristic do you feel is essential to success as an artist?
In my opinion, I define success as anything that makes you genuinely happy. As an artist, success is subjective to everyone as we have the gigs that we’ve dreamed about and make goals to achieve. Then there are the ones that come out of the blue that we never could’ve imagined nor knew we even wanted. Both of these play a large part in our success/happiness. Furthermore, as long as I’m happy and content with my work and what I put out for the world, then that is successful in my eyes.

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
I encourage anyone to come check out my work on my Instagram or on my YouTube channel. On a more personal level, I am currently dancing on tour with Janet Jackson on her State of the World tour 2018-2019.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.youtube.com/theguerocharles
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/guero_charles

Image Credit:
Solaiman Fazel, Farrenton Grigsby, Whyley Yoshimura

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