Winnie Chang on Her, Katy Perry & The Superbowl.
Unless you were living in a cave, you definitely won't have missed the Superbowl Halftime Show last week featuring Katy Perry and 90's legend, female rapper Missy Elliot.
For me, watching such an event on my TV screen at home, has more significance than watching the actual sporting event - I'm always specifically tuning in to see the production of the show, the performance from the artists, and of course, the dancers! Most of you know it's my dream to dance on tour for an artist, and dance at globalised events like this, so imagine my excitement when I see a familiar face dancing next to KP? Canadian born dancer Winnie Chang, is living life as a professional working dancer in Los Angeles and in my eyes is living the dream (my dream!) for sure!
I met Winnie back in 2010 in Los Angeles, and besides her outgoing, loving, and crazy fun personality, it was so clear to see how much passion she has for dance, and how immensely talented she really is.
I thought it would be perfect to catch up with Winnie, to talk about her story, dancing for Katy Perry and booking the Superbowl.
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Tell us a little bit about you and your dancing background...
"I grew up in London, Ontario and starting doing competitive tap, jazz, ballet and acro at Laurie-Ann's School of Dance when I was 6. My favorite and strongest style was always tap which is probably why I always had tap solos, tap small groups and tap trios! (Laughs) When I was 12, I moved to Mississauga and started dancing competitively with Canadian Dance Company when I was 13-16. I stopped dancing when I was 16-18 and rediscovered my love for dance again when I moved to Vancouver, BC for university. It was there that I was accepted into the Source Dance Company, and at the end of my first semester there I saw my first dance battle ever. At that moment, I was so inspired by the freestylers that I knew I needed to be a dancer. I've always loved hip hop music but at this point I had never really trained in actual hip hop styles, so the next year I was accepted into SOULdiers dance company which focused on hip hop, locking and popping. And that's when I officially fell in love with hip hop, funk styles and freestyling! Now that I'm in LA, I train under my mentor Sho Tyme with my crew S.O.D. when I'm not working on gigs!"
So when you moved to LA - how hard or easy was making that happen?
"I never knew that I would ever be in LA living as a professional dancer. I didn't think it was possible! But I started taking small trips to LA of like a month at a time while I was living in Vancouver. Every time I went, I fell in love with dance more and more. One of the last times I went there, I saw an audition posting for a new agency and decided to go. I went just to experience what an audition in LA felt like and I thought it went pretty well and the agents told us that they would contact us within two weeks if they wanted us. I returned to Vancouver and waited the two weeks but never heard from them, so I continued to just work and dance with my companies. Two months later, I received a phone call from an unknown number and it was Lisa from GTA (the agency I auditioned for) and she called me to tell me that they've been trying to contact me for the last 2 months because as soon as they saw me at the audition they wanted to sign me! So once I got the confirmation that I was wanted by an agency, I made the decision to work towards moving there. That year I got a gig in China with some fellow Canadians to dance for a TV show and some artists for about 5.5 months. It was during one of my jobs there that I met Jesse Lee Santos and he ended up offering to help me with my visa when I returned to Los Angeles. After my China gig, I went to LA for 2 months to train again and to work on my visa. All my jobs I did in China ended up being just what I needed to get my visa. I also went on one audition for a small tour for Jin Akanishi while I was visiting LA and ended up booking it - my first official audition for a job! But I sadly couldn't do it because I didn't have my visa yet. But the choreographer Sky Hoffman was more than happy to write me an expert letter for my visa which was great! Finally, at the beginning of March I went back to Canada to wait for my visa to be approved and it was approved in 9 days which was crazy unheard of at that point!"
How was your journey and hustle in LA? How did you make those big breaks?
"I think my journey/ hustle in LA has been exactly how it's supposed to be. I worked hard, training all the time in as many styles as I could and went to all the auditions I was sent on. I would make it really far or even to the end of all my auditions, but did not book anything for the first 5 months I was there. My first job ended up being Justin Bieber's "Beauty and the Beat" Music Video which was amazing to work on! After that, I was still living pay check to pay check doing jobs only every other month or so. When I got called into a private Missy Elliott audition that year, I realized that I needed to train harder and become better at freestyling. That's when I started training in Sho Tyme's class religiously and eventually started training with my crew on a regular basis in hip hop and house. For several months, my love for freestyling grew and grew. I became happier than ever just loving to dance and starting to realize that the industry can't dictate how talented I am and how happy I am. So August 2013 is coming around and I get called for an audition for Nick and RJ for "upcoming projects". I had no idea what I was auditioning for, but I knew I just wanted to get in front of them and overall just have fun at the audition and show what I'm capable of. I danced my heart out at that audition and showed all the training I had been working on and ended up getting cut right before the video taping portion of the audition. But I was okay with it because I did my best and they personally told me they liked me and even called my agency to tell them that I was a favorite of the night. A week later, I got a call from my agency asking if I was willing to workshop for Katy Perry and after a week of workshopping, I booked the job! I think that was my biggest break since being in LA..."
Winnie... tell us about working with KP?!
"Working with KP was a dream come true. It was amazing and such a wonderful learning experience. Being on a promo tour with great dancers and people and performing in front of thousands of people all the time and traveling the world was just phenomenal. She takes care of her dancers and only gives the best to us! I don't know if many artists can compare to the way she treats her dancers, so I'm thankful for the opportunity to work with her! It's also great that she's super chill and really funny." Can we talk about dancing at the Superbowl Half Time Show?! How did you feel? How did you prepare yourself?
"OMG Superbowl was an experience I will NEVER forget. It was the most amazing feeling ever being inside that stadium in front of all those people and their little blue and white cell phone lights flashing everywhere! The energy was INSANE!!!! Which is why I love performing in front of a live audience more than anything like film and television. I definitely cried as the show started and cried even more as it ended! (laughs) I don't think anything can really prepare you for the way you feel performing at the biggest performance of the year! But I can tell you that since I knew I was gonna be wearing a bikini, I did my best to train and workout a lot leading up to the performance!"
Of course, I have to ask you a crazy random question... Opposed from being a KP shark, if you could live an animal, what would you be ?
"If I could be an animal, I'd be a Dragon, but I know those don't exist so I'd be a Tiger! (laughs) I'm a crazy cat lady - so why not be the most beautiful and one of the most powerful versions of a cat?! (laughs)."
Finally, do you have any advice for aspiring dancers?
"My biggest advice for aspiring dancers would be to always love what you do - don't let the industry, rejection or anyone take that away from you! Always continue to strive to be your best! Always challenge yourself, don't just take classes and train in styles that you're comfortable at, because if you're killing it, then you're no longer growing and dance is always growing, so grow with it! Make sure that you stay positive and surround yourself with good positive people! Those are all things I had to learn while being out here in LA..."