People, good day, good night, good evening, good afternoon, good everything.
Welcome back, welcome back.
It's been maybe a little while, but welcome back to the Sunside Kingdom show,
the place where we highlight Dutch Caribbean role models doing epic things in their field.
And today we have with us a very special guest, hailing from the beautiful island of Aruba,
with many beautiful beaches, the perfect white sand.
Aruba doucheterre, as they would say.
Our guest is Ava Cruz.
She's a dynamic professional dancer, educator and choreographer.
That word has always given me trouble. It's a bit of a tongue twister.
Originally from Aruba and now based in Amsterdam, Ava is the founder of EMA Dance Co.
And Ava has made her mark globally from performing in Jordan to touring in Germany,
and even gracing the...
You might have to help me with this one, because this is more Spanish.
Benil de la Habana.
Bia Nala de la Habana.
Okay, you see, sorry Spanish viewers.
I failed Spanish in high school, man.
But beyond her dance career, Ava launched her own IGTV show, What's the Tea?
And co-hosted the Bye Bing.
Okay, so I got that one correct. Bye Bing, Be Right Back podcast,
named Docent van la Tiaar in 2022.
She continues to shape the dance scene in the Netherlands and Aruba.
So join us as we dive into this amazing conversation.
People, welcome to the Sunside Kingdom Show.
So Ava.
What's up?
Welcome.
Thank you. Thanks for the invitation.
You're welcome.
Thanks for coming all the way down from Alkmaar.
If I can actually say...
Oh, I shouldn't say where it is.
It's okay, I live in Alkmaar.
Yes, all fine.
Yeah, visiting us down in the South today.
So tell us a bit about what's life like for you in 2024.
Well, I think 2024 has so far been a light year.
And what I mean with that is that I actually I've had quite some health stuff
the past two years.
So I had to take care of that, of course.
And I have to say that this year, after a while,
this year has so far been the year of growth, the year of reflection,
the year of understanding myself better.
Oh, nice.
And trying to find my place in what for me feels like this new wave of life.
You know, we were talking earlier about our age
and I really feel like when you hit that 30 mark,
there are definitely some shifts in your life.
And I'm somebody who I can deal with change,
but you have to give me the time to like,
to process it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And in my life, especially.
So no, this year has so far been the year of finding the light.
Nice. And it's very much there.
And I'm enjoying it so far. Nice.
So who is Ava Cruz, the professional?
Because I see dancer, I see docent from the yard.
So that's teacher of the year.
Yeah, less in a nutshell,
if you would give your elevator pitch, who is Ava Cruz?
Okay, I am.
I'm Ava and I'm 32 years old.
And I have been dancing since I was three years old.
So that's 29 years.
Yeah, of experience basically.
And in 2013, I came here and moved to the Netherlands.
I immigrated here along with the Bursalen from the time.
For those of you who don't know the Bursalen are like the group of Caribbean students
who get what they call a burs from their from their islands
so that they can come and study over here.
So I came in with the Bursalen from 2013.
Came to study at the Academy, Amsterdam's hostel for the kunsten.
Now it's called Academie voor Theater en Dans, professionalized in education.
And then I specialized in ballet and contemporary dance and modern.
It's not an elevator pitch anymore, but that's okay.
Yeah, no, who am I as a professional?
I dance, I teach, I choreograph, but I love to be creative.
And if I can earn my money with that as well, that's also a bonus.
So your teaching is primarily in dance?
Yes, I teach dance.
At the moment, I'm also the mentor of a class.
So I teach at the ROC in Amsterdam and they have an MBO dance Academy there.
So you have MBO and JABO.
So the MBO is in the vocational level, I'd say.
And then I have students there that are like 15.
And the oldest one is like 20 something.
So they come fresh from the high school era.
And I mentor them in their first year, basically, in their professional trajectory
as they're studying and learning to become professional dancers themselves, of course.
So what I'm hearing here is that there's also that sort of dynamic of...
I could imagine in the creative arts, besides being a teacher,
you're also a bit of a mentor to these students
in guiding them throughout that journey to some degree.
I mean, I do think it's... I mean, you come to school for a reason.
I must say that lately, these past few years, I've been noticing that,
okay, there are many ways to become a professional.
You don't per se have to attend an Academy to get to a certain level.
Because I feel if you have good training and you have good teachers,
you can already get there and your own determination, of course, how bad do you want it.
But when you come to school, in this case, when you come to us at Erosse,
yeah, of course, because you're fairly new to the industry.
You come from a certain background and now you want to professionalize.
And taking those first few steps is also very hard for them, especially for example,
now we're very much with the social media.
And you have to learn to profile yourself on social media too.
Yeah.
Because a lot of the jobs also come from social media.
So they come and we try to mentor them, yes.
And I think for me, as a mentor now for the fourth year,
I think it's about giving them that safe space to allow them to express themselves and not feel judged by it.
And I think that's the most important thing that you feel safe enough to be able to express yourself in such a way,
because it's with that, that's what you're going to make your money with.
Yeah.
And then they need to know what's the important things to know, you know, once I step into the world.
What if a choreographer asks me to stand naked somewhere, for example, and it's kind of like,
okay, harsh, intense, but doesn't have an artistic meaning.
You know, you also have to know your boundaries as an artist.
You can't just up and do whatever you want just because you get paid for it.
You also have to just feel good about it and know, okay, am I going to be there because you want to see me like that?
Or is it because it really does have a certain artistic meaning and then I'm willing to expand myself as an artist
and stand there and do what you need me to do.
So those are also the things that we try to teach them, you know, how do you make your CV?
How do you have a professional portfolio?
What kind of picture should you have as a dancer?
Because I won't take you seriously as a dancer if you show me a picture in your bikini, for example.
So it's all in those little things and it's in it's MBO.
So obviously we start quite very much at the basics of the foundations of certain styles.
And once you graduate and you want to go to HBO, it's a whole different thing.
You have to study essays, study papers, learn about education, learn about how do students think,
you know, puberbrain because I specialize in puber's.
So I also very much have to dive into like, okay, how does a teenager think?
How does a teenager feel?
Yeah.
And I have to say I enjoy it because teenagers are teenagers.
They just tell it like it is.
And I'm kind of like, yes, but there are more perspectives for you to learn from.
And that's what we're there for basically.
I would imagine that your mom placed you in dance, but somewhere along the way.
Your own passion for it grew.
And what were your true influences?
Well, you're right about my mom because I grew up with my mom.
I did grow up with my father.
So when my mom was pregnant of me, she and my dad had split.
But my mom had an inkling that my father's genetics would definitely take over
because my father is a very tall man.
Okay.
He's like two meters something.
I'm five foot ten.
So I'm like 180.
Yeah.
So you're also a tall lady.
I'm a pretty tall girl.
For a female, I'd say I'm pretty tall.
Yeah.
And from what I understood, my mom was like, it's because I knew that you were probably
going to be a very tall girl that I decided to put you into ballet class because then
you in any case could have like a nice posture, you know, carry yourself a little properly.
But I yeah, but I think a little bit my mother know that putting me on dance class was
actually going to be like a slight introduction to my future.
Yeah.
And I started with ballet.
Later on, I moved on to tap.
I loved it.
I also did sports.
I even did tennis at the time.
And I say it with a certain tone because my father is a tennis instructor.
And at the time he was also a tennis instructor.
So I think I did tennis and it wasn't really my thing.
And I was kind of like, hmm, not so sure if I want to keep doing this.
I also did volleyball.
Loved it.
Basketball wasn't my thing.
I could have been great, but no, but I always stopped back to dance.
You know, my cousins also always did.
We let's just say our parents put us on like extracurricular activities, especially for
after school because they were working.
And I think it's better that you put your kid on some type of hobby activity than if
you take the streets, you know, yeah.
So we all did something.
So the guys, the boys usually would be into soccer or baseball, which I also enjoy by
the way.
And the girls, in this case, me and my cousin, she did gymnastics.
She also did dance, but I don't think she liked it as much as gymnastics.
She did the gymnastics and I stuck to dance.
And yeah, the influences I had were I think as a kid, you just you just do something
because you like it.
But once I turned 16 and I got a little bit older and more mature in that, then I
started to take it very much seriously.
Yeah, very seriously.
Yeah, it became something so important to me.
It even went above school.
Yeah, you know, I didn't care that I had exams.
I had dance.
I had to perform mom.
Hello.
No, the grades weren't there, babe.
The grades weren't there, you know, so and that's what I said earlier to very stubborn.
Yeah, very a you know, I don't need a stupid diploma.
I just want to dance.
You say, but you need your diploma.
So you better work for it.
Yeah.
And I'm the one who in the end also just went for it.
You know, I must say that my cousins, they all do something either in I have a cousin
who's a lawyer, another cousin who is in marketing.
I think the other cause is also into marketing or communication, something like that.
And I'm the dancer.
The free spirit.
I'd like to see it that way.
Yeah, exactly.
I'd really like to see it that way because I see sometimes when we do get together, which
doesn't happen often because we all have our own lives that they're also very much like,
but what do you do exactly?
What is a day like?
What is a day in your life look like, you know, and then they're like, Whoa, okay.
Yeah, no, I that's not for me.
Yeah, great for you.
It's not for us.
And I'm like, that's totally okay, too.
Exactly to each his own.
Exactly that.
Exactly.
Who are some of the mentors, the persons that that really helped guide you along the way
towards professionalize in and and and when maybe some of those crazy statements were
made by a teenage Ava were like, okay, but
Okay.
Well, teenage Ava is not the Ava you see today.
Teenage Ava was difficult.
Okay, not difficult as in I mean, you could definitely teach me something.
But you know when you're because I'm only kid.
Hey, so yeah.
Yeah.
I'm very stubborn and very eigenwijs and I always felt like I just knew better and who
are you and why are you talking to me?
It was just terrible and looking back at that kid.
I was like, oh, you really need a good straightening out, but no problem.
Well, the people who definitely brought me to where I am.
I have to think immediately of four teachers.
The first one is definitely Maera Struken.
I don't know if she'll ever listen to this podcast, but Maera was definitely a big source
of inspiration for me because I knew that she also came to Holland to professionalize
and studied at an Academy.
Yeah.
And she believed very much in my drive and my motivation to come here and also do the
same and I appreciated that so much because the first I remember before I even thought
about coming to Holland to audition.
It was with her that I've for example went to New York with and we took dance classes
together.
And you know after dance classes, she would also always give me like good motivational
talks about what is important.
Remember what you need as a dancer and remember that dancing you have to take care of your
body and it's not just about the mentality, but you're also very much there emotionally
and called Hill full by kai can I look and those are the things that you don't always
really understand before you move here.
Yeah, she was a really great source of inspiration.
Another great source of inspiration is Samantha Samantha Vestra.
She is the owner of the dance school where I danced on a ruba that sent you a tree as
well.
Yeah, exactly.
So the fact that she already had a school and she provided such a safe space for her
students to be able to come and take classes and actually she was the one who some Samantha
has always been a very ambitious woman and she very much wanted us to have our international
experiences too because it was a small Island.
So the professional chances or the professional stage doesn't always come close enough.
Yeah, but she would always look it up.
So this woman took us to New Jersey dance competition and totally opened our eyes and
our minds of what dance looks like in different places in the world.
So how old were you when you went there?
I think I went there when I was 16.
I wouldn't have even seen that if it wasn't for her beautiful and another teacher who
I am so grateful for who is now one of my bestest friends and that's Alidia Weaver.
Alidia had always included me in her productions on a ruba already because she's a multidisciplinary
artist this woman does so much and now she lives here in Holland since 2018 which is
amazing because the projects that she does here.
She also includes me.
Awesome.
So she has very much been a big part of my growth as a dancer in my experience because
her performances and her projects if I may call them.
Yeah, kind of forces you to step out of your comfort zone.
So let me tap back on tennis because I also heard well in our mini conversation before
the official conversation that you might not have been great at tennis or like tennis as
much even though your dad was a tennis instructor but there was a sport adjacent to tennis that
you were pretty good at.
Yeah.
Okay.
So for context I think this can be very confusing.
So I grew up with my mom.
She and my dad had split before I was born.
So I was never really visually never in touch with my father never communicated with him
and yeah, I just don't think the recognition was there, you know as a father.
Yeah, like oh, yeah, I am your biological father.
So it just wasn't there.
Yeah.
And I think as a kid I didn't quite understand that because I do recall asking my mom like
so how come my cousins have two parents and I have one?
Yeah.
But it didn't matter at the time because I felt like having my mother was also just
quite enough and I as I said before I also had my aunt and my cousins and it just felt
good.
Yeah.
And well your extended family also sort of yeah fill potentially part of the void exactly,
you know as a kid is still confusing.
Yeah, it is confusing because you're kind of like I love you mom, but where's the father?
You know, and I think for a mom it's very hard to hear your kid ask you that and you're
like, ah, you're too young to understand certain things.
Yeah.
So I never really got a concrete answer from her at the time, but I heard stories and I
also heard stories from my aunt and her partner who knew my father too as well.
So because I spent a lot of time there and at the time I think I was maybe 12 or 11 12
13 something like that.
They had gotten this ping pong table and my cousin and I would spend hours at that ping
pong table because for us it was like a moment of catching up.
So how was your day?
How was it?
I was good and switch and we would be spending hours at the ping pong.
Sounds I can hear it.
It's like it's just I don't know.
It's a specific ball and it's the table that causes it to make a certain noise and that
noise just sticks around.
But for me it was just a moment that I could connect with my cousin, but it was also a
moment that I was actually without realizing it practicing a certain skill.
Yeah, tennis is not the same as ping pong, but there's still technique.
Yeah, you need to know how to play proper tennis.
You need to know how to play proper ping pong and something that was actually just the
thing that I do as a way to spend time with my cousin.
I realized later later later that actually me being able to play ping pong is actually
a genetic thing.
Yeah, I don't play it anymore.
But I think if I were if you give me a ping pong table and a ball and the I don't know
what you call it racket.
Sorry.
Paddle.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly the paddle that I would still quite have the neck of it and it would be
quite okay.
And I found out later.
I think I found out like three years ago 2021 that my father's brother was a professional
ping pong player.
Yeah, and that kind of like passed down to me somehow.
So that was like a huge sort of aha moment then.
Yeah, you want me to dive into it?
I'm allowed.
Okay, I'm going to dive into it.
Okay, so do you want to dive?
I will dive into it because earlier this year in March I also had a performance where I
where I talked about this and now I'm kind of like it's okay.
I can talk about it without having to feel hurt or whatever.
Okay, so I've been living here since 2013.
So I came here and graduated started working etc.
And obviously very much just in trying to get to know what my sister islands are doing,
what kind of creative and artistic people are there on Curacao and Bonaire and Aruba
because I also come from a certain generation.
So before me and after me obviously there have been many people who do other types of
disciplinary stuff in the arts.
So at one point I was on Instagram and I think a while back many many years ago.
I started following this actor called Anton de Bies.
He's from Curacao and in 2021 I was just very innocently scrolling through my Instagram
and I see that he had posted something new on his gram and he was like hey you guys wanted
to let you know that a new work of mine is going to premiere on MPO and it's called the
Druvige Kampioen and it's the story about Robert Jose and I was like Robert Jose.
I don't recognize Robert but I recognize Jose because I know from my from my mom that my
father's my biological father his last name is also Jose.
So I was like oh should I message.
So I did.
You messaged with the actor.
I asked I messaged Anton.
And I was like hey how are you you have no idea who I am but I wanted to let you know
that I've seen works of yours before.
I love it and I see that you're going to be that you have new works coming out and it's
going to be on MPO and I saw that it's from Robert Jose and I wanted to know if you by
any chance happen to know if he has any relation to Humphrey Jose which is the name of my biological
father and he's like hey yeah that's his brother and I was like huh and he's like yeah you
should check it out.
I mean the episodes are coming out this Friday or something and I'm like I'm not going to
wait until Friday to find out more about where I come from especially on the side of my father.
So I was at my partner's house at the time I'm like when oh my god MPO.
Heb jij abonnement?
She's like yeah yeah what's wrong what's wrong and I'm like this and this just happened.
She's like oh but volgens mij kan je gewoon alles vooraf kijken hoor and I'm like well
that's exactly what I'm going to do.
So the documentary or the doku series because it's like three or four episodes excuse me
because it's been three years and I have only seen it once for a reason I'll get to that.
I watched the whole thing in one day so it was like me the couch water tissues popcorn
four hours of just non-stop tears and new knowledge about somebody who is related to
me and especially from the aside that I have no clue who and how and what and how you know
how much this is also a part of myself.
It's the unfamiliar that I don't know.
So it turns out I could imagine that part of that is shocking could have been quite difficult
it was shocking.
It took me at least a year to get over it and not get over the fact that the unfamiliar
is now less unfamiliar but the shock of the story behind Robert.
So the series is called De Droevige Kampioen and it's based off of a book that was written
excuse me I don't know the name of the writer at the moment but anyway a Dutch writer who
had spent quite some time with Robert and based off of the stories and the hours that
he had spent with Robert he decided to write a book about him and about his journey and
how he actually became a champion a ping-pong champion.
My uncle's a legend honestly if I may my uncle's a legend and I gotta say I must because
facts are facts so is my father.
You've had your career in the tennis world you've made your name you've gotten your names
in different places around the world it is amazing and you're still teaching the generation
of today how to play proper tennis super cool you know but I felt more relation towards
my uncle because of the ping-pong factor you know and my uncle was a ping-pong champion
he had suffered an injury on his foot because he also started out as a tennis player just
like my father did but because of his injury on his archelous base he couldn't run long
distances anymore which you know in tennis it's like you need to go from left to right
and left to right etc.
It's quite some it's quite some physicality there and he couldn't do it but he could still
swing yeah so that's why he ended up in the ping-pong world and he became super good at
it and yeah he also became quite a figure for the people back then from the generation
of people who are very much you know 10 10 10 you know the yeah the right the right height
of kurosawa of course and he was one of the people who spoke about the freedom of the
people and why it's important to embrace his new time the kurosawa is is heading towards
etc.
So he made a name for himself as a ping-pong player and at one point he also got to tour
the world play different matches play different people play other ping-pong enthusiasts that
were also very much active at the time and then I think I guess as they depicted it in
the series along the road he he had gotten into the drugs and it was very difficult for
him to kick off of it so returning back to kurosawa he he got so deep into it at one
point he also became a homeless man and the writer of the book said also in the in the
book because I had read it and he said that most of the times that he had spent with Robert
were on the streets in his little home in the woods somewhere in kurosawa etc. and yeah
and for me seeing that because I saw people in the series that made me question like oh
is this a family friend is this an uncle too are you my aunt are you my cousin like it's
so shocking and I mean this in itself almost sounds like a movie it was it was truly I
was so shocked I didn't even know how to tell my friends about it because how do you even
go about something like that you know you're just scrolling innocently on your instagram
you find out that someone you follow is playing the role of somebody who is actually your
your your family and yeah and I told my mom and she was like oh wow you know that's that's
intense you know because she always my mother had always wondered what was it about my father's
family that was so you know sometimes you feel like there's something in a family alka haisha
hevesen krayas you know and my mom knew that something had happened in that family yeah
but apparently it wasn't something that was so openly spoken about but it came about in
the series and it turned out that my that on the side of my father this is intense so
if you haven't seen the series I'm about to spoil it for you spoiler alert yeah it turned
out that my grandfather so my father's father was quite an alcoholic and he was pretty abusive
so one evening he had come home very drunk you know he had already a couple of drinks
down etc and I guess my grandmother at least that's how I that's how it was depicted in
the series my grandmother wasn't very happy about it of course you see your husband coming
home drunk and she had said something about it like yeah come on take care of yourself
what is this etc and I think in his in his episode and machismo he stabbed her oh couple
of times leaving her there she died no I'm coming to it she was just heavily injured
wow and he was not aware that his son had witnessed it oh so he was like ah shit I fucked
up okay um you know what grab your stuff let's go for a drive my grandfather said to one
of his sons I'm assuming my uncle drowns I'm not quite sure but there were more kids so
I think there were like four children or something and then I think for them it was quite normal
okay yeah we're gonna do a drive with dad let's go super fun and it was late at night
and it was him and the kids and they went for a drive and he had like a jetty can next
to him and they were driving driving driving yes I see your eyes already yeah they were
driving and then at one point he stopped somewhere along the beach and he took the jetty can
he drank whatever was in that jetty can and he passed so the kids kind of just saw their
dad died in front of their eyes and yeah it was intense it was intense and then my grandmother
survived my grandfather's attack and I think from then on she kind of like picked herself
up and she was like let's go we're gonna go to Aruba yeah we need a fresh start you know
I can't stay here anymore and that's how it came about and Robert the ping-pong player
he was he the eldest I'm not sure those are the details that I wish that I knew but I
I want to say I don't think so I think my father was older than him okay um and he obviously
um well my father stayed in Aruba he did his tennis etc he did his practice because he
represented Aruba at the Wimbledon but Aruba didn't have a team at the time so he had to
represent Venezuela but my uncle he wanted to go back to Curacao because he really wanted
to you know be something from Curacao etc represent Curacao in different places in this
case for his ping-pong his ping-pong career but he also he had his own sports shop on
Aruba we have this place called Mario's sports shop it doesn't it doesn't exist anymore I
gotta look at Claire I don't know if you know if Mario's sports shop still exists it does
not sure okay I'm so sorry but the owner of that shop also played ping-pong with my uncle
you know so it's the little things you know and in the series if you if you take a look
at it because it's like four episodes of like an hour each one of them and you see the struggles
that he also had you know like for example he had a sports shop and then the sports shop
didn't go well and he needed money and then he burns the building down so that the insurance
could give him the money for it and all kinds of stuff and I was like oh my goodness you
know and it just kept getting worse and worse like shit hit the fan multiple times in that
series and I would be like whoa yo can I say something of course yes of course you can
you know so the life is a funny thing and at times we can also question when certain
parts of our life is maybe feels incomplete or parts are missing but it also sounds like
if all that could potentially transpire there that maybe there was also a bit of a blessing
in disguise of not being fully connected if you get what I'm saying um yeah I do understand
what you're saying um the fact that I can even tell this story to you I'm happy that
I know this yeah but I wouldn't have known it if I didn't stumble across that post you
know because I don't know if I would have been so um intrigued to go and look up my
uncle if I didn't know who he was and it was legit just by the last name that I decided
to message Anton is this guy related to my father because otherwise otherwise I wouldn't
have done it yeah you know I wouldn't have done it um but yeah it it yeah I want to say
if you really want to know more about it watch it it's on npo it's called the druvige kampioen
it's heavy it's not a it's not something yeah it's gonna it's gonna hurt you it's gonna
make you cry because it's hardships and challenges and the reality of a person who really did
lead such a life you know um he passed away last year I understood I think somewhere in
october he passed away which I thought was such a pity because I would have been more
inclined to approach him than for example approach my father yeah um and how I would
have done that I think about that so often like if if you were alive and I was in curacao
and I would get the chance to talk to him like what would I say like hey at the boss
Sabrina key like hey your niece I also played ping pong by the way um oh by the way I didn't
take the tennis path I took the artistic path I hope that's good you know can we still connect
in that way I don't know I don't know and I'll never get that chance and that's totally
okay I've made peace with that but yeah yeah I do see it indeed as a blessing in the skies
that although I didn't grow up knowing much about that side of me this provided a certain
information that is very important and pivotal for me yeah um yes it took me a long time
to settle with the fact that this is also a part of me yeah um and it's in that series
that I actually found out about the slavery side of my father you know and yeah that it
explains why I look the way I look and why I feel the way I feel and especially also
from the influence from my mother's side absolutely you know I'm such a Latina girl but I'm also
such a Caribbean chicken general I have Aruba, Carcao, Colombia, India, Venezuela um I understood
that my great-grandfather was a slave from Africa what part of Africa I don't know but
wow knowing that that's also a part of me yeah that I have some kind of sense of pride
in that yeah you know um but his story is a story that I continue to tell people because
as shocking as it was it is a real story yeah and it's a story that I yeah it also had a
significant impact on the way I live and the way that I am and giving you also more let's
say coloring a part of your story that has been a bit of a blank space yeah I never put
any color there that's so true because we were talking about the gray area yeah yeah
no this was no polished area absolutely not because I didn't know how to fill it in in
the first place I think it's very difficult for you to fill in a space if you don't know
what belongs in that space exactly you know and I very much had that with uh with that
side of me but um what I find also super super um then you really know how small the world
really is um in 2022 when I saw the series of course I was still very much talking about
it with people because it was so shocking I had to talk about it you know that's my
way of process exactly I had to process it in a way and I especially talked to people
from Curacao because I was always wondering like hey by chance do you have do you does
the name Roberto say sound familiar to you because he's a homeless guy in Curacao so
I don't know if he looks familiar so I even show pictures like oh my god yeah I've seen
him he walks around by D&D supermarket and I'm like ah well I'm happy that you saw him
you know it kind of gives me that feeling of like okay he because in Aruba when I was
little I would look at the homeless people and I'd be scared but if now when I'm grown
I look at them and I'm like ah you know just some wrong decisions along the way you know
yeah um and I see my uncle in that sense too because in the series they also show how they
really tried to get him off the streets but he just didn't want to he didn't want to and
he really just wanted to live his life his way and I have a lot of respect for that the
freedom and that obviously it wasn't the best choice for him at the time but yeah I this
the title the group of a camp you know yeah it's a tragic story but it's also a story
that like if I talk to you now I'm so happy that I could tell it to you because because
it's an impactful story and I do want to say that you should watch it I'm definitely gonna
you should watch it it's very heartbreaking and it's a very harsh reality especially from
that time you know 10 10 10 yeah it was a quite impactful time for the Caribbean region
specifically Cura South and and uh St. Martin and other islands and he he was part of that
and I think that's cool.
So it sounds like um the what what was the first lady's name?
Um Mayra. Mayra so so Mayra provided a lot of um almost sounds like a bit of emotional
support on along the journey and a lot of these talks that stayed with you and then
was it Stephanie? Samantha. Samantha oh sorry Samantha. Samantha was the one who opened
her students eyes. Opened the eyes and and and brought you to new shores and and and
a whole other world and then um Alidia is the one that showed you that beyond dance
the creative in you the artist in you can also bloom and create whatever that comes
to mind in whatever location that is available to you. Yeah absolutely and I think you know
it's funny because you said people who do epic things and I'm like okay am I one of
those people because I know a lot of people who do epic things like you you know we had
a whole conversation before we started recording I'm kind of like this is epic too you know
but yeah these are people that definitely even 20 years from now 30 years from now maybe
even if I ever stop dancing these are still the people that I'm very much grateful for
because I wouldn't even have a living yeah you know so yeah definitely these are the
people that I I take with me for sure. Well sorry you probably would have a live in but
you wouldn't have a purposeful living. I want to say I wouldn't have a living in the sense
of like that that you're really connecting to the core and what you're passionate about
exactly and discovering what dancing means for me you know and how can I make a living
with that yeah because I'm pretty sure we're going to talk about this too but I think a
lot of people just have that um I don't want to say an assumption but I think people have
the impression that you can't do that yeah um well you very much can't make a living
with as an art as an artist or as a creative or with a certain art form etc and I do think
that you have to really try and do more homework in order to find out what you can do in order
to make that happen but as I said I had never any other interest in any other subject or
art form or other ways of so could you unpack that a bit how how do you make a living with
dance okay listen okay first of all should I take a sip you can take a sip um as I said
there are so many ways to be able to make it out there for me it happened like this
I had been dancing since I was three years old um and I think my teachers saw that it
was just something that I enjoy doing um I'm also quite expressive so I also very very
so often I got the opportunity to also just take like a lead role in a production or I
could be a soloist or I don't know I think the potential was just there and they trusted
me enough to be able to to get on with it um when I was 16 I realized okay I want to
do this um also because I must say my my my body can handle it you know I'm a very um
yeah athletic type of person yeah so I kind of like okay if I have to dance I'm gonna
dance you know I'm willing so when I when I got here and that was in 2013 um well it
was a bit of a shock because you come and live here which is so different than what
you're used to back home that's true you're from st martin so you know um and your partner
also knows clear you know leaving Aruba and coming here initially it's going to be very
shocking for you yeah and I have to say that if it wasn't for the dance I don't know if
I would have actually made it made it yeah the dancing was not just what I came to study
but it was at the same time also my coping mechanism so I studied for four years and
within those four years I met where did you study Amsterdam's hoogeschofere kunsten okay
academie vier theater en als het in Amsterdam met de water looplijn within the four years
I met a lot of other dancers uh either Dutch or Belgian or African there were some Caribbean
students but not a lot at the time I hope that changes of course yeah and teachers because
that's your first network yeah your classmates and your teachers and um you just have to
try and figure out what it is that you want because I knew already that I wasn't going
to be what they call a wooden the dancer so I decided to go for the dance education instead
because I kind of feel like you can dance but if you can teach that also has a bigger
uh how you call that like a bigger market for you yeah because I kind of feel like with
the teaching you can really earn as a dancer as well but most of the time you're based
off of contracts well if you're a teacher yeah you have a certain stability exactly
yeah so I went for that and obviously while you're studying you do a lot of internships
you start already with little kids which was not my thing and you go you kind of go through
all the generations so you start with the little ones you go from the clutter then the
peuter then kleuter, basisschool, middelbare school, zelfvolwassenen, ouderen etc and
and yeah I gotta say I had a lot of internships and within those internships I scored some
jobs and that's kind of how it starts yeah if you can score a job before you graduate
you're you're okay because you need to have some type of income because once you once
you're done studying yeah duo is not going to keep sponsoring you yes and you have to
make sure that whatever you earn is kind of equivalent to what you used to get from duo
or a little bit more yeah so mind you if you plan to do this when I was still at school
in my third year 2016 I was already starting to score my jobs because I knew that within
a year I was going to graduate and if I don't have a job so those were teaching jobs or
those were teaching jobs all teaching jobs okay some of them were performing jobs but
that's like a one-time thing so you perform once you get paid bye bye yeah but the teaching
jobs are more consistent you come every week and then if they like your work you can stay
they offer you more hours like hey I see you teach badly but can you do contemporary can
you do modern and that's kind of how it fell in for me I was in good contact with certain
teachers and they were also looking for people who could substitute their classes and that's
kind of how it starts you have to invest a lot in that yeah I think a lot of people underestimate
when they have like a bottle or an event for the alumnus or for the students go to those
because that's potentially where you're going to find your next job yeah and your next network
so by the time I graduated I think I had about six freelance jobs and like two horeca jobs
so it was a lot to juggle a lot a lot eight different jobs yeah every day I had something
else and I had to go from one city to the other and teaching here and teaching there
teaching the next group and you're my friends never saw me because I'm grinding yeah I'm
out there grinding making my every day we have to live my my Jesus my act and and it
was intense at times you know that I would just come home late and I was living with
my housemates and I would be just like you know what sorry for my French but it's just
like what is it worth it is it worth it and I'm kind of like Ava remind yourself why you're
doing this in the first place it's just crazy sometimes and and then you know you're kind
of like okay I'm gonna hold on to this so I have to say it wasn't easy yeah but the
more you the more jobs you get and the more the more you start to realize okay so this
is what I like but this is what I don't like yeah that's important so you can start to
filter the jobs that you like the least because it's something something that I say all the
time is early in your career it's it's it's also best to go a bit broad that you taste
multiple things even during the course of your studies you you you taste multiple aspects
of the thing that you're interested in and after you've tasted then you start to also
realize what you have a taste for yeah what are the things that you notice okay this is
something that I can actually I can handle first of all yeah this is something that I
like yeah and I think I can actually get these students somewhere yeah it's not always about
you and you can grow and and and become an expert in in that in your craft yeah exactly
and so once you go broad then you have to narrow back down exactly that and as I said
I'm always kind of like at the once you start you start to filter the the jobs that you
like the least and then you keep the ones who give you the stability a good income and
the ones that you look forward to to go to because it's not fun when you know that oh
I gotta go to these kids great well it costs you more energy to do that than if you just
go to a job that you're like yeah I picked this job because I know that I'm gonna have
you know my fakes as a teacher yeah kids are gonna learn something and yeah the stability
is also quite important yeah and I must say now because now we're 11 years later I graduated
seven years ago now I'm at the point in my career that I'm like yeah I have a pretty
pretty stable income my job is good I know what I have to do as a mentor but also as
a teacher because those are two different things yeah it takes time you have to invest
but it's not impossible yeah and I think that's especially what I want to say anybody can
do it but you have to want to you have to be able to just have that determination and
motivation to be like okay I picked for this and this is what I'm gonna make my life based
off of yeah how did your Caribbean background sort of influence the way that you execute
your work today well no it's good that you ask actually a couple of in May I was part
of this program where they were talking about the linguistic phenomenon of being able to
code switch you know because as Caribbean beings I'm sure you do it too especially now
in the Netherlands now the Dutch comes into the code switching but living on Aruba it
was very much a code switching between Papiamento English Spanish later on came Dutch of course
and why I mentioned this is because I always thought that this was going to be a problem
for me working here because they speak Dutch yeah but now I notice that I actually don't
care anymore and I kind of just go about it I even let my students know like listen your
teacher speaks four languages deal with it as long as the message comes across yeah yeah
but if you still have questions let me know I think that aspect that Caribbean aspect
is the one that definitely also opened a lot of doors for me because I ended up teaching
at a school where they had Spanish kids I can speak Spanish you know or I had a lot
of like Caribbean students who got in touch with me and they were like hey so you heard
that you're busy down there as a dancer but do they speak English down there and I'm like
yeah of course you know and if you're here let me know and then I take you to that place
if you want to and then you know make you feel a little bit more comfortable because
I think a lot of people are kind of like I will make it down here if I don't speak Dutch
but that's not totally true yeah because there are enough English institutes here as well
and the Dutch can speak English yeah maybe not fantastic and but they can understand
and I would also say that in general the country has had quite a bit of migration in the past
a couple decades and simultaneously some of the bigger cities I have seen them internationalize
even more like here in Eindhoven for instance so you came in 2013 I came in 20 in 2003 oh
wow okay 2003 10 years before and it the city has completely changed and it's way more international
than it's than it ever was yeah so so that in itself yeah persons don't have to worry
about it as much no but it's still very good for you to be able to learn and speak the
language because it helps with with a lot of different aspects of life absolutely no
but I also think because when you come here you realize okay I can speak Dutch but I just
can't speak the advanced Dutch that they speak here yeah which brings me to my next point
of your question they're like you know being Caribbean how did you like navigate here when
I started habeo I didn't do all of my exams and my essays etc in Dutch I had actually
written to the what you call it the student rat and asked if it would be possible for
me to actually do my work in English but then academic English because I knew I was super
good at that yeah and I can handle that and at first it was kind of like oh we're not
quite sure because the study is of course in Dutch you have to be able to speak Dutch
but luckily my teachers were like no it's okay let her do it and if we and if we see
that that it goes better and you're willing to try out in Dutch then we'll try it in Dutch
yeah so I really much appreciated that because I didn't want to I mean you don't want to
come across over as I can't speak Dutch I can but you have to give me the time to land
in the level of Dutch that you speak because everything that we read was all in academic
Dutch and I understood everything but I also knew that it was going to take me some time
to just be able to even get it out of my system yeah writing wise yeah so I was very happy
that at first I could just like okay let me settle into this Dutch cocoon but let me do
it in English first and they were totally okay with that which I could appreciate but
that that in itself is it shows what's the word I'm looking for flexibility flexibility
yeah yeah you know that I couldn't I just lost the word and then the only thing that
came to mind was cojones well it I mean it took it took it took some courage maybe courage
is then the the the PG version of that some balls it took some balls to to to to go to
the school board and say hey I I'm willing to do everything I just want to do it in a
different language and and it's a language that all of you can also understand and speak
that's pretty cool that's pretty cool I mean I think if you if you want me to thrive in
your system yeah in your school system I'm willing and I know I can but it's just going
to have to take a little bit of adjusting but at the end I think my teachers also could
see like ah okay I understand why you want to do it in academic English because it's
kind of like your second language you're asking me to speak an academic type of language that
comes to me very foreignly yeah yeah it's my fourth yeah you know and if you know a
little bit of like the colonization I'm not even supposed to speak that language but I
do yeah so I'm willing to I'm willing to adjust to your system but then if you're willing
to be a little bit more flexible towards me who's a newcomer in your country yeah that
would be fantastic and I'm happy that they could do it because at the end I must say
I got rather pretty good grades you know I think as the message comes across we should
be fine yeah it is it is really kind of interesting and funny because I had a similar experience
really it wasn't throughout my school but for my final internship my report I requested
if I could write it in English okay and I eventually got the approval and because I
could write it in English and then like I really felt like I could shine yeah and and
in the end I got like eight and a half and and and a very good review etc but I know
that that would have probably been different if I had to write the whole thing in Dutch
of course because it wouldn't feel as natural even though I'm capable of but but the execution
of it it wouldn't have that it wouldn't have that extra spark yeah that you know that you
have in you so you you mentioned or or more earlier when we were talking off camera about
the podcast so how did that came to be well my friend Gionna Chutope she had an idea a
couple of years back and she called me random I was in the subway I think I just came from
work or something and she's like yeah listen I really want to create this podcast where
we can talk about the challenges and the many unseen and untalked about emotions that you
feel as a Caribbean being living in Holland oh whoa those are really interesting topics
like yeah I want to do it with you how do you feel about it I was like yeah of course
Gionna is somebody who I've known since I was three years old you know from the band
school no oh Clutter we went to the same Clutter school yeah and we lost touch for some time
and then came across each other again and yeah we've been really good friends since
and yeah she created it and I co-hosted with her and we're now two seasons in nice and
as I said it's a it's basically a podcast that's surrounded around the stories of people
who immigrate to the Netherlands but also kind of juggle that in between life as I told
you you know yeah going home and coming back to the Netherlands what you actually also
sort of call your own home because you're building your life here yeah and navigating
that area I don't want to call it the gray area because it's not gray it's very much
real it's it's it's it's very colorful it's like a blended of all these colors that yeah
and the gray is there but it's a different another like silvery shade of gray yeah you
know what I mean it shines the silver lining gray yeah it's very much polished and yeah
I live in that I live in that area and so do many of us yeah and so the podcast is actually
surrounded around those type of stories and people who also come from the Caribbean and
it doesn't have to per se be from Aruba, Bonaire, or Curaçao or the Bursalen as I said but
we also interviewed people who for example come from Jamaica people who come from St.
Marcia's people come from St. Martin who have similar feelings and similar yeah information
and indeed the challenges that they also have to go through to be able to just settle here
and find your way and yeah what does that mean and what does it mean for me to go home
what is home does home even feel like home for me anymore or is it yeah you know all
of those questions come about in the podcast and I'm really proud of it to be honest because
we've heard such wonderful stories from people who I'm like wow you could be older than me
but there's so much that I can relate to you know even Suriname yeah or people who come
from Panama all of these people and it already comes to show you how many nationalities that
are that live here yeah you know Caribbean or even like Latin America it's all very it
makes you feel less alone hmm yeah so there's also the performing aspect touring could you
unpack that a bit for us touring I've toured once and I'm very lucky to say that I have
toured by the way because it's a cool thing to do so at school my academy time I had this
teacher and she was looking for somebody who would be able to substitute her ballet classes
okay and she and I we build up a really good professional relationship with each other
and in the end she also introduced me to her sister who is also a professional dancer and
they wanted to tour with a production that was about frau a handle okay yeah the trafficking
of women yeah which also by the way a lot of dancers end up in that in this industry
as well I have to call it an industry because you know it is what it is and so with my teacher
at the time and her sister and I think it was also like two musicians and and a music
producer and all that we had like a group of like five five dancers and she was like
yeah a lot of two in a lot of theaters in Germany are looking to have to have us do
you want to come and I'm like me sure so we started off in Mannheim then we went to Frankfurt
and then a little bit of other cities that are outside of Germany as well and Berlin
and Germany is huge Germany is huge but yeah it was interesting because as a dancer then
you you learn like okay what does it feel like to tour you know you're exhausted you
go from city to city sometimes you have to perform two three times a day yeah and every
performance feels different because of the energy level in your body too and the audience
that you have in front of you and I mean it's about frau a handle this it's quite an intense
topic too so how are how are the German audience gonna take this you know is it gonna be positive
is it gonna make an impact or it's gonna be like oh this is the shittiest thing I've
ever seen it really depends on who you have in front of you but touring as a dancer is
fun and it's very interesting it's very learned there's a lot of learning lessons there but
I think the thing that I loved the most was being able to learn from the the people that
I could work with at the time because they were already so much more experienced than
I was my teacher and her sister at the time they were just one of the best dancers that
I ever seen so it was so cool to even be a part of that yeah and the and this was why
you were in university yeah this was in 2016 just running up my third year and then we
tour for like two months and it was brilliant and I'm very grateful to be having to be
able to have done that because I know that touring for dancers is like oh my god if you
get to tour with an artist that would be so cool and this wasn't per se like I we didn't
tour with Chris Brown no but this was something meaningful and something important and an
important subject and you got to stand on different stages and I think as a dancer that's
a that's a very nice accomplishment yeah you know so that's kind of how it basically happened
again network connections it's all about who you know and it's super important because
you mentioned it earlier that you there were so many people with different walks from different
walks of life so from different ethnicities backgrounds etc and and and you also went
out of your comfort zone many times to connect with these people and and build up that network
is something that I always try to encourage students to do because from the Caribbean
we we we also tend to sort of stay within the little cocoon of the Caribbean network
in that comfortability yeah but there's so much more for us to experience and see if
we step a bit more out of that comfort zone every now and then epic only happens outside
of the comfort zone absolutely I and yeah I got to say even it because I'm 32 there
was a time that I was like okay is dancing still something for me and then I realized
you have just been doing the same thing for a long time you need to switch it up a little
bit for yourself yeah so you can imagine for like I don't know since I was three 29 years
yeah this ballerina girl yeah because I started really as a ballet girl on her pointe shoes
you know this ballerina girl has been doing the same thing for so long it's about time
you learn new styles yeah you know and I have to say that this past season I've done now
hip hop classes dance hall classes and heels dance hall and heels okay no not dance hall
in heels dance hall and heels so heels classes okay okay heels classes so there's dancing
heels classes but then what are you dancing well it's quite sexy I mean what type of music
um well our teacher is very much into like those rmb type of tracks okay um for like
we had an end of the year showcase and we danced on dirty from Cristina Aguilera I don't
know if that song is familiar to you yeah yeah yeah I mean I am that old I am that old
and that features red man yeah that's it red man that's it so we danced a whole choreography
on heels on that track oh my god and that's not something that I would usually do yeah
but I also realized that it has to do with like I don't know I don't know if you have
this but you get to a certain age and you're kind of like fuck it true I'm gonna do it
true I might look ridiculous but this is me getting out of my comfort zone because it's
not supposed to feel comfortable no you know when it gets too comfortable switch it up
you're already dying yeah switch it up so you need to switch it up to uh to bring that
spark again exactly and um so we had that showcase and I was I was on stage and I got
off of that stage and I was like you did that dirty in my heels you did that and I have
to say since then it's gotten more interesting okay nice you know it's gotten more interesting
that I don't ask myself like okay is this still for me yeah so you found you found a
new spark to to breed new life into it absolutely yeah and this is a classical question that
I asked but I almost feel like the advice has already sort of been wrapped up in in
all that we spoken about but if you would look into the crystal ball back to the 18
year old Ava what advice would you give her you're gonna be okay you're gonna be very
happy it's you're gonna be very happy you're gonna be you have to push through so was she
a bit insecure about being happy I think 18 year old me didn't quite know what it meant
to be happy yeah you know I have to say generally I'm a very optimistic person and quite jolly
you know I'm not really uh I don't want to I don't want ever to people to look at me
and be like she has a bad aura I don't want that and I think that at 18 I was still very
much angry and not quite sure what I want and yeah as I said very stubborn and and
I have eyes and oh you know looking back at myself I'm kind of like oh loosen up man so
I kind of want to tell my 18 year old self you're gonna be fine you're gonna be fine
you're gonna make it you're gonna make it happen you're gonna find your way and you're
gonna find people on that way that are also gonna push you to push to push through and
keep pushing yourself and good friends nice partner yeah I can't complain now at my 32
I'm like yeah it's it's solid it's solid and it's not impossible what what made 18 year
old you a bit angry if we if we unpack maybe some aspects of your childhood growing up
in Aruba um I think it has to do with my sense of freedom because I felt a little trapped
down there you know a lot of friends yeah a lot of my friends at the time had already
moved to Holland yeah my cousin specifically so I kind of felt like oh so you get to have
your freedom you know oh you don't have to live with your parents anymore yeah oh you
get to do this you get to do that and I kind of felt like I didn't have that while I did
it was just in another form yeah but you're you're so fixed on your own because as a teenager
you're so like this you don't look you don't open your eyes you're so focused on yourself
you're I kind of felt like as a teenager I was pretty egoistic and I'm an only kid so
obviously it's not like I was very much used to having more people around me and sharing
you know and now I'm kind of like please take it you know kind of like healing that part
of me now I think I was just very much I felt trapped and I felt like oh great I have to
stay here in Aruba and I'm gonna have to do a study that I don't like and I'm gonna have
to build a life that I don't like because I've always been motivated by the fear of
being average why didn't you move at 18 and to come here I didn't move at 18 because well
first I did half oh first of all and my last my exam year I had to do twice okay and somehow
I was like okay am I ready to go no not just yet so I did very oh okay didn't finish that
that's fine okay um but I did go to work yeah and I'm happy that I did that because I needed
that I gave me a sense of independency that I could go to work and I could earn my own
money which also gave me that type of freedom which I was very much craving yeah yeah so
if I were to go out I would never have to ask my mother for my money I had my own you
know I always told myself don't stick around for too long don't get too comfortable no
exactly don't stick around for too long because I'm somebody who needs a lot of variety and
I was like if I stay here then I'm gonna stay here like the rest of these people oh no so
I stay there for like a year or two yeah 2012 I came here to do an audition to be able to
study at the dance academy but at the time I didn't get in but I was also not really
prepared for it so I kind of feel like the universe protected me at the time yeah but
I really wanted it I really wanted to dance I just wanted to make that part of my life
come true yeah and then at the time I had nothing to do with freedom but it also had
to do with the fact that yeah and Aruba it's not normalized to study art yeah it's very
much seen as an over glorified hobby and I'm kind of like well it's not a hobby for me
folks so bye bye and then in 2000 yeah and in 2013 I came again and I stayed a little
longer so that I could audition at all of the academies so if I couldn't get into one
I could maybe have the other as a backup so you came with a with a better plan with a
better plan I was more prepared I had better training I had just come back from New York
as well so my you can't say that I hadn't been in any case active with my body you know
because in 2012 you weren't that active you were more I think I kind of just saw it as
like oh I'm gonna get in it's fine yeah but it wasn't that way at all the reality slap
so exactly that and then in 2013 when I came I auditioned at all of the schools and I got
accepted at all of them so I could pick whichever one I wanted and Amsterdam had my heart at
the first instance already yeah so that's where I ended up and then I was like here's
my freedom nice so we we we we touched on the present we touched on the past we touched
on all aspects of the journey the mentors the person that played these vital roles even
touching on the fact that now you're able to play this vital role in the life of others
what's what's the future looking like what are some of the long-term goals that you may
want to share with folks for well well your company but also within teaching what what
are some of the things that you see that you want to get into well I'm 32 now and I have
to say I'm still very much looking for that challenge you know as I said I'm taking other
dance classes now so that does me well bringing me also in a totally different network opportunity
once more so I'm loving that and I definitely think I can professionally dance until my
if this body keeps it up I think 40 for sure yeah but I do I am looking for a career switch
I won't lie okay so while dance has my heart theater and acting also has my heart and so
I'm trying to navigate how I can get into that industry so I'd say in the long term
I still see myself dancing I still see myself teaching as I said if you can teach that's
already a pretty good skill to have because you teach anywhere but I also very much look
forward to maybe stepping into something new like like what I said the acting and yeah
I'm somebody who likes to be in front of a camera but I also love to be behind the camera
I learn a lot yeah from directors and also other creators who for example want to do
a creative project and then they're looking for people who are willing to help I'm the
first person to put my hand up because I'm so interested I want to know I want to learn
I'm very in that sense I'm very much a Sagittarius you know Sagittarius in me is so craving for
knowledge and new skills yeah so I can also do it myself but maybe even pass it on to
someone else yeah yeah I see myself doing that in a couple of years and also about being
a obviously a Caribbean person and and have gone through this trajectory spent time in
the states here in Europe what what would you want to see for persons coming from small
islands pursuing these passions what what advice would you give or what would you want
to see sort of change for them for the better well first I think it would just be really
nice if if you're if you're a parent and you see that your child has a knack for something
let's say that's dance or music or acting or anything that's in that creative expression
industry please please encourage your child to also do something with that yeah because
it's important I don't know if I would have been as happy in my life if I had picked something
else I actually even can't imagine it to be honest because I'm so deep into the deep into
that industry of dance that is just who I am but I want to say if you're gonna come
here in the Netherlands or wherever you end up going you could also go to the USA or wherever
it is that you see yourself settling hey because you can do that anywhere in the world as long
as as long as you have what you need make sure that you really believe in your craft
because that's what's going to make you the artist in the future yeah we're looking well
we're as if it's me and my people but what I would then personally look for is individualism
and so my advice would be to really know who you are bring out the core of your being forward
because that's what that's what the industry needs yeah the industry is not looking for
people who look the same the industry is is actually looking for people who has who have
something special something unique something that they haven't seen before yeah and we're
all very individual dancers if we talk about dance in this case we're very individual dancers
we don't move the same we don't look the same we don't express ourselves the same we also
don't obtain information the same and that's what makes it so interesting in the art form
yeah it's individualism so bring your individualism don't change yourself just because you want
to make it somewhere because then that place is not for you true that place is so not for
you you want to be in a place where you can actually thrive being yourself while also
growing and learning new things to make you as an artist and your identity be even more
broad and more horizons and I think a lot of people just have a whole different perspective
like oh if I if I look like her if I look like him and I do it like them that's what's
gonna get me forward no do it like you yeah because that's what I'm interested in awesome
Miss Ava tell me thank you very much thank you I definitely enjoyed this energetic conversation
thanks for coming and meeting us all the way down in the south you guys are cool I want
to do it more often actually yeah you guys are cool I like Claire she's next to me y'all
can't see her but she's she's a baddie and John John looks like an Arubian oh shit he's
got Martin they claiming me I mean you're part of Rubin though because you're with Claire
yeah yeah yeah so I have two Arubian kids and and as I said my mom was born in Aruba
so there is that connection there and he has nice light eyes like you don't see that often
so that's the first thing I said to Claire like hey is he a Rubin she's like no he's
from St. Martin I'm like oh he's got light eyes oh my god so yeah girls watch it he
married that he married with children no I'm joking no but thank you I had fun it was
good it's a really really cool platform thank you thank you very much so guys I'll see you
in the next one don't forget to like subscribe place comments if I forgot to ask any particular
special questions let me know share this with with all of your peoples Aruba St. Martin Suriname
Netherlands everywhere or I even forgot to ask Ava where can they find you I have to
say I'm not too active on socials it's just better for your mental state of mind true
true please live in the live in the present in the real world but if you want to follow
me you can find me on Instagram a phone a for cruise xx cruise with a C by the way I'm
on Facebook and all honesty I only keep my Facebook open for the Arubian news I just
want to know that everything is okay yeah yeah and yeah I'm on TikTok too but TikTok
is more for the fun of it and so yeah I'd say if you really want to get in touch with
me just email me okay and you can email me at Eva m a cruise at gmail.com thank you once
again and I'll see you guys in the next one peace