Vincent
started taking dance classes on a bet, or dare.
An uncle, back from a visit to Spain, came bringing gifts—a shawl, a fan, a comb—but not to him.
Instead he, like Vincent’s mother a flamenco dancer, promised his nephew to teach him flamenco, “if you dance a year of ballet.”
“And here I am,” says Vincent.
Flamenco rhythms have been ingrained in Vincent from birth. He was also already a gymnast (part of what explains the extraordinary and fluid control of his solo in FRAGMENTS). “I was a jock little child—soccer, baseball, basketball—a very physical child. Being active was what I wanted to do.”
Ballet class was hard, to do all these difficult movements, with music, and also to express oneself at the same time. But it was a challenge that kept him interested. In the summer of 2005, while he was enrolled in the American Ballet Theatre intensive summer program and beginning to feel hemmed in by a diet of entirely classical music, Vince heard about a dance class taught by former ABT soloist, Sandra Brown, at Complexions. It was contemporary dance, “a whole other way of moving, a different kind of aesthetic, a way of filling my body to its fullest.”
For about a year and a half, Vincent has been with Spectrum Dance Theater. Olivier saw him dance there and in other programs around town.
Vince finds Whim W’Him a special company. It makes use of “the energy that each of us holds.” The experience has been “fun and productive.” The dancers work really well together and complement each other.
“No one would want not to work as hard as someone else.”
And he repeats, “It’s special…”