Today we’d like to introduce you to Toni Manar.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I have always wanted to be a dancer. Since I was a child watching Disney channel. All the scenes at the ends of movies and shows where a character went ahead and put their all into doing what they love (some kind of performance) and getting so much applause after literally became a dream I had over and over again. My passion for dance showed my whole life in my apparent inability to stand still whether there was music on or not. While walking in the hallways at school, being in a grocery store, standing in a lunch line or really even just sitting in my seat in class. It was so funny to everyone how I would dance at the most random and inappropriate times and then when there was music on, forget about it. This may only form of showing my passion until I got into cheerleading and stepping although these were not actual dance (choreography) teams I wished to be a part of, they were enough. How I got started was this. I make it to college that I didn’t really care for but was ready to explore for reasons like friends, parties, adventures and experiences rather than education, a degree and then a career with paid Time off.
I tried dancing while I was in college but I never really could get into it between trying to pass my classes and having a social life. Fast forward to graduation that was held in a basketball stadium where they had the college games, I was in the middle of the arena standing up to walk to the podium and my name was being chanted and I was being cheered for and I just thought to myself how my whole life and definitely my time in college I wanted to have just performed on stage or at halftime to deserve an applause like that and now it was over, no more opportunities to experience that. I walk the stage and get my degree and have no idea what the hell I will do with it. I didn’t even know where I could apply or how I could go about doing so. I went to school because I had to, it’s the American way. In life after graduation, I was still bartending and serving because I was obsessed with the fast money. and it was easy to me and all I really knew. On my free time, I found myself watching videos of the same dancers in LA over and over again until A man I was living with me told me I should just go take a class when someone was traveling to Chicago where I have family to teach. This is where it all began.
I took this class and did not kill it how I wished to but how could I? I wasn’t a dancer.. I DID get inspired though, after a meet and greet with the teacher. She told me 24 was not too old and that I could do it If I just put the work in. She let me cry about how I had all this biology knowledge I got from school and the nonexistent dance knowledge I should have tried my hardest to acquire while I was daydreaming day in and day out t be a dancer and then she told me to get to work. I went home and did just that. I wasn’t even a dancer yet but I started posting that I was having “class” where we would all practice dancing together and get better together, grow together and chase that dream that did not have to be dead if we didn’t want it to, I wasn’t a dancer yet so other dancers weren’t coming to my class but a WHOLE BUNCH OF NONDANCERS were in that class. We looked crazy every damn week and had a great time doing so while cheering and motivating each other to keep pushing until we all started to get better. My class blew up because I had video footage every week of people exercising self-love and women empowerment and it was the same safe environment every time. I went from the girls every week to 50=60 girls every week and from teaching at a small ass Zumba studio to multiple studios every single week and having sold-out pop-up classes in Massachusetts which was a whole entire other state. I am not self-trained, I did max out credit cards one hundred percent to travel and learn and train with the professional choreographers in and from LA. I was going to 5-12 class conventions monthly or bimonthly.
Then someone who was in that veryyy first class that inspired me to start dancing and keep dancing, who lived in Atlanta reached out to me about a collar (it was someone who wouldn’t even look my way when I first met them because I clearly wasn’t a dancer but I didn’t care, I saw an opportunity and hard feelings just didn’t have a place in my journey…at this point in time anyway). I came here to work on a choreography with this person and I tried to stay here for good, literally. I canceled my flight back home and kept my rental for three months and I lived in it until I completely ran out of money and couldn’t renew the rental for another week. Then I had to go home and work for the Amazon because my whole state was still on lockdown and nothing was open. The only place I could get overtime was amazon so that’s what it was. I moved back here in January 2021 to live in the car again and made it work. Got a job, got my ducks in a row and got an apartment and brand new car (not right away)… I found Vixens Studios that allowed me a home studio to start teaching my class and growing my brand.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not a smooth road at ALL. I mentioned in the last question I was sleeping in the car and I was showering t the gym. I did have family in Snellville that I tried to live at. But it was so far from where. I was working and I was allergic to cats and they had three! It literally was easier to sleep in the car and shower at the gym. When I REALLY needed to lay in a bed and get some sleep or anything like that, I could do it and I did.
One thing I hated dealing with was men figuring out I was sleeping in the car and thinking that they could invite me over and try to sleep with me. I learned early that men will use anything to try to take advantage of you.
Being a dancer but not from Atlanta, so not having an audience here was hard to because no studio would give me a chance and no dancers wanted to work or collar with me. I felt like I was never going to be able to start somewhere, but I did not believe it or couldn’t, so I kept going
Another obstacle was trusting the wrong people, thinking people had real intentions to help me get to where I wanted to be when really they were just thinking about themsleves and had a long-run agenda.
Becoming obsessed with the nightlife and fast-paced environment that was now my new home also slowed me down. I could have progressed faster I think If I didn’t let me suck me in but I had never been anywhere like Atlanta before and I literally just couldn’t get enough of it.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a choreographer and dance instructor, I teach a heels class called “Heels & Hype” Because when you are in your heels working on yourself and practicing confidence, everyone in the class will hype you up. In the room you have heels and you have Hype. One difference I can address right off the top is the hype. There are plenty of classrooms that will have heels in them but they won’t always have hype. Definitely not every single time. The dance world can sometimes reek of competition and uncomfortable unity and I’m trying to change that as much as I can. I am most proud of how much I have changed that thus far.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I am a risk taker in SO MANY WAYS! Just the way I came and moved to Atlanta Was a risk! I came out here to “collab” with someone I looked up to because their Instagram made them look like someone to look up to and 0nce the choreography was said and done and it was time to fly back home I canceled my flight and tried to stay forever. I had a rental that I was renewing every week and I was living in the car and off-door dash. People daily were expressing to me that sleeping in the car in Atlanta was HIGHLY not recommended but my mind was made up, it was a risk every day I took. I took my showers at the gym every day! Because this was so unplanned, I could only keep this up for about two months. When I completely ran out of money, I had to call back home and ask my parents to buy me a ticket back home.
When I got back home, everything was shut down because of covid still so the only place I knew I could work for sure and even get overtime was as an amazon delivery driver. I saved just enough in four months to give it another wack. I ended up back here with somewhere to stay technically but still was sleeping in the car and showering at the gym for the most part. And I made that sh*t work. Leaving everything I had at home including my weekly supporters and sold-out classes that was a guarantee for me will forever be the biggest risk to me. I was doing so well but I Had bigger dreams and needed a bigger city for them. I was afraid my people at home would drift away or forget about me if I moved away but I had to just commit to trying my best to balance out both providence and Atlanta as much as I could. Risks in general, I think are very important. I think you have to take risks to get things that you want because if not, then everything would just come to you and you wouldn’t have to work for it. If everybody could have what you want at 0 risk rate, it wouldn’t be special or worth working for.
Staying safe in my case would have meant staying in my hometown living with my parents and teaching my classes every week because that’s what I knew and that’s what was working for me. There is nothing wrong with this at all but I do not know how I would have met all these dope choreographers I know in Atlanta today who are low-key my friends now too! The new dancers I train beside and with in class or rehearsals for shows I would have never met if I didn’t put myself out here! The shows I get invited and paid to do out here would never be If I wasn’t here to be met and invited! Risks I have taken so far have helped mom expand my network but also touched other people who needed something like Heels & Hype in their life. I have more risks to take as I am not done and I know I will do it. To anyone in this world who wants something different that they think they cannot have, please don’t say or think you cannot have it for starters but also, take some risks to make that ish a reality.
Pricing:
- Group Classes $15
- Choreography $120
- Reels / Tik Tok Music Promo $70
- Private Lessons $65 / Hour
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/ladyy_papa?igshid=NmNmNjAwNzg=
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCP34_17CG1624JBzGLCNRsQ
- Other: www.tiktok.com/@ladyy_papa
