BEYOND THE DREAM: MAKING IT IN NEW YORK

We have all heard the term ‘Making It in NYC,” but once we scratch past the shallow surface of this statement, beyond re-runs of Sex & the City or the bright lights of the Broadway stage, what does the famed saying really mean.

In my next couple of posts I will sit down with various NYC based artists, from full time dance companies to freelance, from Classical Ballet to Broadway, and attempt to paint a more fully realized picture of what “making it” might actually look and feel like for someone deciding to make the big move to the Big Apple.

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Chanel DaSilva, a freelance dance artist in NYC who also happens to be my long time best friend and now business partner. Chanel is a native of New York, but left the concrete jungle after college to work with the acclaimed Trey Mcintyre Project (TMP) for six years. Just under two years ago she decided to move back to NYC and pursue a career in the freelance scene here. We sat down for an afternoon coffee and she shared some of her insights about the last two years, experiences she’s had, things she wished she had known, and some honest advice for anyone thinking about a move to New York!

Nigel Campbell (NC): Hi Chanel, how are you today?

Chanel DaSilva (CD): Hello Nigel (giggles), I’m good.

NC: So… Chanel, you are a native New Yorker.

CD: I sure am. I’m from Brooklyn, New York.

NC: Yes you are, and you went to LaGuardia High School, the “Fame” School. You are also a graduate of The Juilliard School. Once you graduated you moved to Boise, Idaho where you danced for six years with the Trey McIntyre Project. There, you were one of his lead dancers as well as a rehearsal director. You have set his works here in NYC and all over the country. You’ve traveled all over the world, been on the cover of Dance Magazine, you are a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, and a Princess Grace Awardee… It seems like you’re “living the dream??”

CD: Well… seems like. You know those were all amazing accolades that came during my training and my time with TMP, and those are all things that I’m very proud of; But when I decided to move back to NYC, I knew I would be taking on a whole new chapter of my career. Which was being a freelance artist. I didn’t know I would be doing it for this long. I thought it would be an interim of maybe a year while I found my footing in New York, but knew it was going to be different. I just didn’t know how different.

NC: So how is it different? I would think that for a dancer with your level of experience and background it must be super easy for you to come in and just jump right into the NYC dance scene? 

CD: Well, I thought that too. I thought that because I’m from Brooklyn, because I know most of the dancers and choreographers in this city and they know me as well, that it would be easy. It wasn’t easy, and for the longest I couldn’t figure out WHY it wasn’t easy. I actually, unfortunately, turned it inward and blamed it on myself, on me not being a good dancer. But I had to realize that, for one, I had been gone for six years. Although people knew what I was doing, I wasn’t HERE, so people didn’t really consider my a New York dancer. And the second part is I knew people but I didn’t “know” people. I wasn’t in the in crowd. I wasn’t in the room where it happens.

*I’m finding now that people don’t get jobs based on being number 67 at an audition and getting your leg really high and looking beautiful.* 

Did you take class with that company before?

How well do you know the director?

How well do they know you?

Are they Familiar with your work?

I’ve learned its more based on that.

NC: So you’re saying its more based on physically being here, building up your “street cred” so to speak, networking? I’m also hearing you say that first you needed the time to figure that out, and once you did you then had to begin the work of doing… Of getting into the room where it happens. 

CD: Yea, yea. That took me a year to figure out. I mean, I got back to the city and started working with Lar Lubovitch right away on his season for the Joyce and that was great. But when that finished I was like “Ok, whats next for me?” And, I not so intelligently limited myself to just contemporary dance. I said to myself “I’m a contemporary dancer and I will only join companies that do contemporary work.” I was limiting myself. I always thought “oh I’ll do those other types of dance and other opportunities after my career.” NO. *In NYC you do what brings you the money, what brings you the opportunity, what brings you the networking!* So it took me a while to broaden my vision a bit, but once I did I started prospering in new ways and funny enough, it broadened my network.

NC: Interesting. So, can you explain a little bit more about what it meant to “broaden your vision? “

CD: I completely opened myself to the commercial work. I go to Broadway auditions more than I go to contemporary dance auditions at this point (laughs). I’ve opened myself to doing commercials, modeling… *I’m open to using my artistic self in what ever way possible.* So whether thats like, someone’s doing a music video where they cant necessarily pay me what I’m worth, but its a chance for me to put myself in a video where someone can see me and that could bring me another job opportunity… Great. I’m open to that, where I wasn’t necessarily open to it before. If I believe in it and I believe in this person, I’m gonna do it, because its going to mutually benefit the both of us.

I started teaching a lot, which is another one of my passions, but I hadn’t been fostering it so much because I’d been so focused on performing. So I started teaching here in the city, I taught a whole summer at New Orleans Ballet Association, I was apart of the Barbados Dance Project faculty, and started teaching at my alma mater LaGuardia HS. I also started choreographing a lot. “Anybody need a piece done? Great, I know how to make a dance.” And that supplements, with money, the “making it” part in New York, because “making it” is not just being successful as an artist. Its also paying your rent, and sustaining your lifestyle.

And last but not least, with my best friend (That would be me, lol), I decided to start a NYC based organization that is not for me directly, but involves me being a director and carving out my place in this city. What is going to me my path in NYC? What is going to be my legacy? And this is it, MOVE(NYC).

MOVE(NYC) founders

NC: Can you tell us more about MOVE(NYC)?

CD: Well, MOVE(NYC) is a rigorous, tuition free summer dance intensive geared exclusively toward NYC teenagers, ages 13-18, who are talented and motivated towards a career in the arts. Nigel and I started it because we both believe that access to high quality training should not equal “dollar signs.” It should be determined by how gifted and how motivated you are. So we created a program where we could give that type of training to deserving young people. It’s literally the program we wish we had when we were teenagers. I unfortunately couldn’t afford to go to summer programs so I missed out on quite a few. My mom had to take some extreme measures to send me to a summer program one year and I just don’t feel like any family should have to go through that. I believe whole heartedly in my mission and in my program and I believe this is what will carve my path in New York.

NC: What a great opportunity for the young dancers of this city! 

CD: Yes, and not just for the young people in our program. In order for us to offer this program to our dancers for free, we have to create events where we raise money in order to offset MOVE(NYC)’s operating costs. We are hosting: *LETS. MOVE. NOW. A Benefit Dance Concert *on June 25th at 7pm, in partnership with Gibney Dance at 280 Broadway in lower Manhattan. 

When Nigel and I were crafting the show I said “I’m dancing in this show!” Its perfect because not only do I want more performance opportunities, but THIS is the kind of show I want to be in because its amazing and involves amazing artists! This is the caliber of work I want to be doing and I’m also hosting, curating, presenting my own choreography and putting myself in my own work.

NC: So you’re choreographing, dancing, curating, and hosting this event. You have LITERALLY created your own opportunities to both perform and present your own work in NYC.

CD: Yup, and to be at the helm of the ship. To have OWNERSHIP. Again, I’m not as young as I used to be and at this point in my life I have a pretty distinct idea of what I want. Nigel and I happen to be pretty in sync with each other cosmically, so I said lets partner together and MAKE this thing. We can be the directors. We decide what it is. We can create it however we want. We don’t need reinvent the wheel, we can make something new thats ours.

So yea, thats been really exciting and you’re right, I’ve literally made an opportunity for myself to wear as many hats as I want to wear all in one event.

NC: Awesome. So you’ve been back for just under two years now. What do you know now that you wish you would have known then? 

CD: What I didn’t know then was that New York will chew you up and spit you out if you don’t have a tough shell. I wish I had known then that you have to come to New York guns cocked and ready to go. You need to embellish a little bit. It’s about saying YES to the opportunity. And here’s the root of it… What I didn’t know then that has helped me a lot in the last 6 – 8 months is say yes to every opportunity! Even if it seems like its completely left field. If you can do it and you believe in it and its monetarily beneficial, do it. There were so many teaching opportunities I could have said no to, but I said yes and it connected me to someone who could help me out in my performance career. Teaching at LaGuardia has been such and amazing platform, but when I was offered the job I almost said no. I didn’t want people to say “Oh…She’s teaching now, she winding down.” I’m not winding down, but I want to be for my students the relevant, working artist that can tell them what the world is right now. I almost said no to that opportunity, I’m so glad I said yes. It has been fantastic and
so inspiring! Say Yes!

NC: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more! So now that you have been back for almost two years… what would you say the best and worst parts of freelancing in NYC are? And if you had to do it all again, would you make the same decision?CD: I would do it again. I would just hope that someone would send me a little note in a bottle that says “Do this. This is the right path, but here’s a few little tools to help you.”

Going into my 6th season with TMP I felt like I had plateaued and it was because I had been in a consistent, scheduled work environment and I was longing for something different, new and exciting. I wanted to do project to project, I just had no idea what that meant. I didn’t know that there might be a 6 month gap between this project and the next. What are you going to do to supplement during that time?

I honestly thought I was ready. I was so ill equipped coming back to New York, but it was absolutely the best decision for me! I came back. I’m here, in my city. I have a pulse on the city. I’m starting an organization here, in my city. Its NEEDED here! So my first year back I hit complete rock bottom. It was the most depressed, broke period of my life. Like literally (slams hand on table) …Broke and Depressed. But *I truly believe that every point in your life is needed and necessary to make you a whole human being and so even while I was going through that place I was like “Ok, this is a learning lesson. What am I supposed to be taking from this?”*

The hardest part is the insecurity. Sometimes I don’t know when the next check or the next gig will arrive. I’d say probably once every other month I have a mild panic attack, but then something inevitably comes through and I’m good. It keeps me on my toes. *I’m always having to self manage, go to shows, meet new people… because that is where the opportunities live. I can’t just sit back and expect someone else to plan my year for me. I have to be on top of it. I have to be ambitious. I find that even though it can be a struggle, I love the variety of my life right now. I’m ALIVE! I’ve felt more alive in this past 1 1/2 to 2 years than I’ve felt in a long time.*

**For more information about MOVE(NYC) visit: www.movenyc.nyc**