Jennifer San Miguel
Jan 4, 2024
International Street Jazz and Hip-hop Artistic Director/Dancer/Choreographer/Teacher
I had the extreme pleasure of interviewing one of my favorite dancers recently. I was introduced to his amazingly fluid style of street jazz and hip-hop choreography when I was in NYC taking classes with my daughter in 2018 at Broadway Dance Center. His ability to teach in a way that this ballerina could actually dance hip-hop made me feel amazing. The dance was very fun and he has a very calm and personable teaching style. It's no surprise that it is because of his approachable demeanor that he was so prompt in replying to my request for an interview and is #DanceLifeBetterLife's very first interview captured on camera!
We are very happy that our mission to encourage dance as a means to provide a positive state of being resonates with Carlos as well. He started answering questions before I had the chance to ask them and validated that he notices that when he is away from his normal dance routine, as he does when he goes and visits family in Portugal, he feels "just a little bit sad, or a little bit useless and I kept thinking it's just because I'm in Portugal not in New York where I'm used to living. In talking to one of my mentors and even some of my friends I started to realize that, oh, maybe I just feel sad because I am not dancing. It definitely affects my moods. As soon as I am back in NY and teaching and moving, not only do I feel more active and useful, I’m also moving because I am teaching or performing and I feel a lot happier and I realize it has more to do with dance and not just because I am in a different place.”
Ok, so one of the hardest things to combat as a dance student, young or old, is the soreness that typically accompanies the first couple of weeks back to dance after a break in routine. I asked Carlos how he manages the transition back to dance after his breaks and he said that he is not really sore because he regularly works out daily outside of dance “whether it is with my mentor training, YouTube videos or taking other people’s classes, when I go back to dance I’m usually ok. I do feel a difference in my stamina at the beginning of class but after a class or two it goes back to normal. I do feel like after you’ve done it for a period of time, even if you loose it a little bit during those breaks, your body catches up fast. Muscle memory almost.” Yes, one of the key characteristics/habits that the dancer lifestyle requires is the ability to maintain habits such as moving daily, that could be working out, taking a pilates class, take a moment to choreograph something new and building and retaining muscle memory.
What is Carlos Neto’s favorite workout? He shared that his favorite type of workout would be more geared towards calisthenics using his own body weight. “My Mentor Sekou, who is a House dancer, is a personal trainer and my favorite thing to do used to be to go to his house and train with him and that is all with body weights, form, and quality of movement, holding certain positions on the floor and it is very complex to describe in 2 minutes, but that’s my favorite type of workout because it is geared towards dancers.” Carlos has had a recent issue with his hip so he is not training so much for the time being and is just in the regular gym, but as soon as his hip heals, he will also be back into Pilates at Broadway Dance Center and Body Art with some of his friends who teach. Carlos emphasized that the types of workouts he does is “definitely more to do with mobility and real strength to help with dance rather than just muscle building with weights which I think is important as well, but I prefer mobility and body weight and all that stuff.”
I am so glad that he mentioned his mentor unprompted, because it is important for people to understand that the dance experience is largely based on mentorship. Carlos pointed out that we don’t always realize who our ‘mentors’ are. For example, he grew up in Portugal and moved to London fairly young in 2004 and looking back he had some mentors who he didn’t at the time realize were his mentors, ”but they were the people that guided me, especially when you are an immigrant and you really don’t have family there anyway, so it helps in that sense and also to guide you in your career.” He moved to New York in 2013 and said it was very important for him in his first few years teaching in NY to “join a community that he didn’t belong to until he came here as far as training and the proper education regarding the culture and training. Even though I do something different now as far as now I do a lot more choreography and I work a lot more commercially, I like the fact that I have learned foundations from the right people training me and bringing me up in New York City with the right information.” So it’s a whole “umbrella of mentors” that he has had.
In my opinion, Carlos is very successful and I love his style of dance and the way that he conducts class is very grounded and personable and I perceive him as someone who is a mentor in his own right. “So do you think of yourself as a mentor?” I asked. His reply was “of course for some people, for sure. At Broadway Dance Center and back then at Peridance as well, we do mentorship programs, and as part of the program you give people advice in dance, in class, a bit more outside of class as well. Obviously everyone is different, so different teachers related to different students. I’m grateful that some people see me in that position and I do my best to guide them not only through dance class but also, you know, we try to be as positive as possible, but being a dancer is not easy at all, you know I often say it is one of the hardest jobs. You have to be an artist, an athlete, you have to be able to teach others to learn to perform, and there is judgement that we have to withstand that is massive so you’ve got to be able to deal with that stuff, mostly at the beginning of your career, because as you age, you as a person change, you get more into the person that you are supposed to be and things get easier, you don’t care about judgement as much, also because you evolve in your career, you’ve done stuff. In the beginning, that’s when you need more advice or support or whatever you want to call it and that’s where I jump in at BDC. I help them with class and tell them what classes they should take. A lot of times I send them to my mentors. A lot of times they have dancers issues which is they don’t feel good enough, or they hit a wall and can’t get any better, or they don’t have any family here and should they go back because they miss their family, and so I talk them through that with the best that I can with my experience. I think it’s important that if we had mentors, we mentor people the best we can and always have the best intentions at heart.”
There he goes again, leading right into my next question…”What is your intention when you dance and is that different from when you choreograph and have you throughout your career seen your intention change?” I asked. “Oh yeah, it’s changed a lot. As far as a dancer, when I was younger it was about performing the best I can so I can have a certain level of success and people can see me and I gotta be on my toes all the time and clean, and so I would say it was a bit superficial as opposed to what it is now. Now it is about giving the people as much as I can from me as a performer, I try to give my all, and some days I can and some days I can’t, but more than anything, I don’t want to disappoint myself when I perform as far as how much I can give. So let’s say I’m a little nervous because I am doing a solo, my challenge now is to use that energy to my advantage, rather than it being a disadvantage, use that nervous energy and still being able to open up and perform. In dance you can do the steps and from the outside it may look good, but for me the challenge now, my intention is more for myself, to give as much as I can in a performance. It doesn't have to be in storytelling, it could just be dancing slower, calm, show really how you feel in the moment when you do any sort of choreography. That’s my intention as a performer. As a choreographer, my intention is to give dancers the best tools to look good when doing my material. In my opinion, some of the best choreographers that we’ve seen in the last 20 years are those who have managed to create the formula that always looks good no matter what on dancers and on artists that sometimes can’t even dance, but it looks like they can dance because of the formula of the choreography is very good at managing people’s skills. So as a choreographer for me, let’s say I am building a piece, yes I want to do something that looks good, and also my intention is for them to look good, so to be able to play with people’s different skills in a class or in a piece is the most challenging thing and my intention is to get them to look good with the material that I give them. So managing the level of choreography and the intention of the choreography with people’s skills would be my main points. As far as changing throughout my career, my intention used to be the harder that I teach the better, to really excel as far as difficulty and speed and do the best choreography I can. Now I want to do stuff with a bit more meaning. When I do a piece for example, I like to do a bit of a theme or have some sort of message. I used to choreograph for dancers to see and now I like to choreograph for non-dancers. For example, my brother who is a biologist, if he sees a competition dance piece, you know after a minute for him everything is the same. So I want to choreograph something for people like my brother will look and receive and read something into it.”
I found out during the interview that Carlos Neto was actually a child actor in Portugal and did not start dancing until he was 18. In his desire to learn English, he moved to the UK to study at the age of 19. While in school in Wales, he needed a job and applied at the supermarket near his college and then also applied to teach fitness classes. “I realized how much I really enjoyed it, I really love being in the studio, the energy, teaching dance classes. So I started traveling to London to do dance classes in 2004, so that’s pretty much when I started.” He continued to pursue his journalism degree and masters and by that time he pretty much knew he would continue with a dance career. His professors even told him “Have a good dance career”. He went to work in journalism after college in Wales and then decided he wanted to continue dancing, so he would travel to London two or three times a week, travel to Sweeden, to Czech Republic and all over to take classes “and I got so obsessed about it, you know, I finished my degree in 2008 and just moved to London and started working as a dancer. I auditioned for a few shows that I did on the West End and it was good to do what I loved and get some money and be able to live from it.” “I was lucky enough to meet Simon Cowell personally one time in 2009 and he referred me to bigger choreographers and he helped me with a few jobs and he really enhanced my career very quickly. I worked as a choreographer and dancer, I spent ten years in London, loved it and then I moved to New York.”
Wow, what an amazing story, and I was taken aback when he mentioned Journalism, as I myself have not taken journalism since elementary school! A small sidebar ensued as Carlos was gracious in not passing judgement on my performance as an interviewer and stated with levity that “…we go to college way too young…it was an amazing degree, with people from the BBC, but I didn’t take full advantage of it because I was so young and just wanted to dance…Now that I am so interested in Politics and journalism, now is when I would really love to study with those teachers.” He does still use the degree though, he writes for Backstage Magazine, which if you don’t know, is the source of information for dancers in NY to find auditions etc.
Ok, so let’s deep dive now… “What is your favorite food?” I asked. Carlos replied “That’s the hardest question of all! I really enjoy cooking, and if I wasn’t a dancer I think I would be a chef. My favorite food is Portuguese chicken soup ‘Canja’ with meat and lemon, definitely my favorite food.”
Next question, “What is your favorite drink?” His response, “I drink water or sparkling water, I do enjoy Diet Coke, but I avoid sodas in the US.” Me, aiming for a plug for our ‘I start my day with a ‘Grande’ Plie design’, “Do you drink coffee?” Carlos, “Oh yeah, coffee is my favorite drink, I don’t know any dancer who doesn’t like coffee!”
Carlos’s favorite type of animal is dogs, he said “I don’t know how anybody would have a different answer, but no judgement😊.”
Ok, our signature question, the one you’re all secretly wanting to know: What is in Carlos’ Dance bag besides shoes? “Tiger balm, spare t-shirts, boxers and different pants because we always sweat so much, ibuprofen too, electrolytes and extra bottles of water.”
I didn’t know when I set up this interview what a great example Carlos’ story is for the #DanceLifeBetterLife mindset. He was on a path to become a journalist and the dance world won him over and he has since had no regrets and loves what he does. We believe everyone should find their passion and do what they love. We believe that everyone should know the joy of dance, whether they choose to change their life to pursue it as a career or just take a few classes here and there, our belief is that it will elevate you in ways you may never realize.
Check out his website Carlos Neto Dance and book his class at Broadway Dance Center Carlos Neto Faculty Bio | Broadway Dance Center