Today we’d like to introduce you to Felipe Benitez and Constanza Toro. Them and their team share their story with us below:
We are Felipe Benitez and Constanza Toro, a married couple from Chile.
Cony started her professional dance journey around 2007 when she was in her second year of college in the city of Concepcion. While she was studying her major (Biomedical Civil Engineer), she auditioned for a jazz dance company and, starting from there, she never stopped dancing, training, and working in different dance styles. In 2012, she met Felipe while she was working on a dance project. Felipe was also starting his major in Mathematics at the same University when he started his dance journey, training Hip Hop with one of Cony’s co-worker. With all of this in common it was just a matter of time until we started a relationship on that same year.
We were learning and working together in different jobs leading by dance companies and entertainment productions, such as Spago Chile Productions, Club Space Dance Club, and Risitas Mágicas to name a few, this gave us a chance to work for big productions: shows in casinos, TV, and theaters. All this experience prepared us for what was to come.
In 2015, Cony starts her journey as instructor, teaching the first Street Jazz course in the city while Felipe started teaching House Dance and organizing dance battle events. One year later, we decided to create our own Dance Company called Street Jazz Concepción, to reflect mixture between the jazz influence of Cony and the Hip Hop influence of Felipe. At that time, we were the only ones doing this dance style in the city. Our main goal was to work with dancers who were committed to train and to take their dance to the next level, as well as pushing up the dance level in our city by working in a professional way.
We worked with that Company for around 2 years, putting together some amazing shows and preparing the dancers that now are dance instructors with their own dance crews and dance companies.
In 2018, and looking for training and new opportunities, we decided to leave Chile to move to Atlanta. We mainly took classes almost every single day at Dance 411 Studios until Covid-19 came. Still, with a year and a half of training in ATL, we felt it was time to be back in the professional work again, so we started to work to get different gigs and jobs. Taking advantage of our Latin roots and experience in Reggaeton and Latin Rhythms, we worked (currently working for some of them) for Latin artists such as Rey Gatsby, Toshany, Joseph Music, and Miah. Felipe also had the opportunity to work for the well-known band The Village People, to teach at Za Dance Studio in Duluth and to work for Z28 entertainment productions.
Nowadays you can find us working at Rumbera Atlanta (@rumbera.atl) a project started and managed by Victoria Orellana where we teach women-only beginner dance classes in Reggaeton, Latin Urban and Latin Fusion. We also have our own dance project called La Zona where we teach pop-up intermediate/advance classes for people who are interested in level up their dance level and train in a professional way, looking to include Latin rhythms like Reggaeton into their training.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Talking about life in general, being away from home with no other family besides each other is always difficult, but at the same time this has helped us to stay focused on our goals and learn a lot in the process, so then being away from home was worth it.
Fortunately, we have met incredible people along the way that have made this journey much more welcoming. We had to start from scratch when we got to Atlanta. Starting from the language, living in a new country, train in a different way than we used to, and started our dance career all over again. The support from the friends we made when just starting in ATL has been so important because helped us to achieve everything we have set out to do.
And this is the most challenging part for Cony. She had a surgery at 11 years old due to a disease called Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis, and since then she lives with a 3 inches screw on the left side of their hip. Fortunately, she had the surgery right on time to get a great diagnosis and the result after the surgery was awesome, she was able to walk normally and even dance against all odds. 23 years later, she is still dancing and enjoying her passion. Since she started her dance career with this condition, with the help of her doctor, she has learned to dance and train her body without damaging her joints. However, since in Atlanta she was dancing and training harder, developing her dance career leaving aside her profession as an Engineer and other jobs to dedicate completely to dance, the physical effort has also been greater. She has had to adapt herself to continue dancing in a safe way, avoiding jumping, running, weight-bearing, and dancing styles with too much impact or stretching. She still has a lot to develop as a choreographer and as a dancer, so she lives her passion while being conscious of her physical capacity. Everyone is different, but this doesn’t mean you can’t follow your dreams.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
We know Atlanta is a city of great dancers, so it was difficult for us to stand out without having something that make us unique or special. We decided to take our Latin roots and specially Reggaeton as a spotlight to highlight our work, but also to fulfill our need for Reggaeton dance classes like the ones we used to take and teach back in Chile. This is what we are passionate about, what we have specialized in and what has managed to differentiate us from all the incredible talent that exist in this city.
One goal of Cony is to work with Latin artists who seek to add value to their shows through dance, music videos or performances. There are many Latin artists/singers starting their careers or looking to become better known in this country. Cony is currently getting inquiries to choreograph for singers, events, and even for wedding surprise dances. She is working for a Latin tribute show with two local artists, and she has started accomplishing one of her personal wishes, which is works alongside Miah (a Colombian artist) as her choreographer.
Now, we are teaching beginners Latin dance classes (Reggaetón, Latin Fusion, Latin Urban) every Tuesday at Rumbera Atlanta. This is a safe space only for women created by Victoria Orellana (an Argentinian entrepreneur) where women have a chance to dance to their favorite Latin songs, meet new people, and have a good time. We are incredible grateful with this opportunity because it allows us to network with the Latin community and had better chances to accomplish our goals.
Any big plans?
For the future, we would like to continue teaching reggaeton and engaging with the Latin community. Reggaeton was something needed in Atlanta and more classes have started after we started teaching at Rumbera. In addition, Cony wants to keep working with artists and therefore we would like to eventually move to Miami where most of the Reggaeton industry is located. But for now, we are focus on our current project and happy with all the positive impact we have done.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/constanza_gabriela and https://www.instagram.com/ni.tan.bailarin
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdAEYKQ3-Fy5OCVzqNSb5DA and https://www.youtube.com/c/NitanBailarin
Image Credits
Raul Salgado Academia Petite Danse
