Hi Consuelo, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started dancing Mexican Folklore my freshman year in High School. I participated in multicultural projects in school and in my community. In a Cinco Festival I saw a Salsa Competition and I was so impressed with the dance style and fell in love with the music, from that day on I made a commitment to become a professional salsa dancer. I started taking lessons, going to every salsa clubs, concerts, congrecess, parties, and competition in my home town in Eugene Oregon. I always dream of traveling the world dancing, competing and teaching. I did not know how I was going to do it. I only knew that dancing gave me lots of joy.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It has been nothing but a smooth road. In 2001 I meet my dance partner and husband and we moved to Norway in 2003. I moved to a small town of Tromsø where I did not have access to any dance lessons or where to go out for social dancing. It felt that my development was going to be put on hold, luckily my then husband was as passionate as me with dancing so we started to travel to London and New York to get coaching with top instructor. We started to offer classes in the little town of Tromsø and four year later we had opened one of the biggest schools in Northern Norway. Everything was going great, we started competing in world championships, traveling the world teaching and performing. I was living my dream live! In 2006 we got invited to work in China. We stayed there for two year. On my last month in China 2008 when China was hosting the Olympics. We were preparing for one of the most important performance of our carriers taking part of the opening of the Olympics. One of my ballet teachers over stretched my leg dislocating my right hip and created an inflammation on a nerve. I was on the top of my career and with so many projects to complete, it felt that my whole world fell apart. I lost all my flexibility with extreme pain that triggered the nerves in my spinal cord and my brain. I was not able to even walk for over 6 months. I lost all hope to ever dance and compete again. I went into depression.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I love teaching people of all backgrounds to dance. I focus mostly on private lessons. My goal for every student is to get them to the point where they feel confident to start going out. Social dancing could be a bit intimidating if you do not have the skill to dance with a complete stranger. A Lot of my students are also trained dancers in other dance styles, and want to start learning partner dance or are preparing for competition and want to include salsa in. their performance. I love to see young talent embracing Latin music in their performance. My style of teaching builds all the right skills from the very first lessons to be able to go out dancing as soon as possible. For me every one is born a dancer, you just need the right training to bring out the dancer in you.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
Google works best for me and word of mouth. Referrizer.
Pricing:
- One lesson $95
- One lesson $95
- 5 Lesson $325
- 10 Lesson $525
Contact Info:
- Email: impulsodanceandfitness@gmail.com
- Website: ImpulsoDance.com
- Facebook: @ImpulsoDanceandFitness
Image Credits
Photographer: Scott Stanfield
