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Warren Telling Tales - A Hub For Creators
A hub for creators!! This podcast, showcases the lives of creative influencers around the world and their work. Warren Telling Tales, sits down with hugely talented individuals. There is advice, insight and guidance from singer, songwriters, theatre practitioners, authors, narrators and online influencers, to name a few. You will leave feeling inspired, believing, its never to late to pursue your dreams.. these guests, are truly extraordinary. Anyway, sit down with us and see for yourself. Feel free to leave comments and let me know what you thought. Enjoy!
Warren Telling Tales - A Hub For Creators
Episode 19 - Professional Hip hop DANCER and CHOREOGRAPHER! Felipe Garcia
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Episode 19!
International dancer, choreographer and video producer!
In this episode, we will discuss his journey, challenges he has faced along the way and how he overcame them. We will look at his experience to date and how to be successfull as a hip hop dancer and choreographer.
Felipe's BIOG: I am a multimixer artist. Choreographer/producer/performer. I love my job , having the chance to meet new people, new cultures, new ideas and different perspectives. I do story telling choreographies on my own and always try to send a message. If you need someone to make a video for you isn't a better solution for the person you want to hire knowing their job but what YOU want to do at the same time? Hope you enjoy my work as much as I do and support me to make more and more . Welcome to my life hope you stay for sometime.
Felipe's Socials: FB - / felipe.garciaalbanellis
Youtube: / riskodj
Ig: @felipe.garcia.albanelles
Full copyright: Do not use this material as your own. Legal action will be taken.
Host Warren Adams - Warren Telling Tales
Website https://warrentellingtales.buzzsprout.com/
Warren Adams: IG / warrenadams. . and / warrentelli. .
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Linkedin: / warren-ad. .
Twitter: / actoradams
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Okay, welcome everyone to today's podcast episode. We've got Felipe Garcia Albaneles on the podcast, and I am very excited to sit down and talk with you today. For those that don't know, Felipe is a dancer and a choreographer, and I've had the pleasure of looking at some of his work, and it looks amazing. You're a super talented dancer, uh, and I love all the production stuff you've been doing as well, creating videos and all the tech stuff going on behind it, which is very cool.
SPEAKER_00Where are you by now? So I'm in London, so every time I get more inspiration in London Bridge and maybe Piccadilly Cycles with other dancers. So what I do exactly here is I'm trying to network with people. Yeah. That's it. Like I love uh listening to news stories and meeting new dancers. Uh, it was really good. Unfortunately, I came two years after the whole COVID and uh it was upsetting, but still now that everything is opening, it's good.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, everything's sort of getting underway again, which is which is nice. Um, where are you from and uh originally, Felipe?
SPEAKER_00Originally, I have a mix of Ecuador and Greece. Okay. So a little bit Mediterranean and Amazon.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool, man. I love it. Um, good. So let's jump straight into it then. Um, you how long have you been dancing for? When did it all begin? When did your dance profession begin?
SPEAKER_00Um I would say professionally 2015. Yeah. But I started dancing with a group of people in 2013. Okay. Um yeah, it took me only two years to go professionally. Uh well, every step you take just counts. For me, that's it. Um, so we started dancing. I remember three months after my first steps, uh, they called me and they're like, We have a gig, we are dancing there. I couldn't even keep up with the choreography. So I started from the front and I ended up in the show, the last person on the back. Okay. Okay. Uh after that, I said to myself, if you want to keep with the people you're working with, and if you want to keep up with the choreographies and everything, you need to step up your game. So I started searching for seminars, and it was really nice discovering other energies, other people, other cultures of the same thing. Like everyone was dancing hip-hop or Latin, but everyone was from a different background. I went to Czech Republic for 10 days, and then I spent months in New York studying with um choreographers from back in the day. They used to work with Michael Jackson and Marayakari. And I'm really honored to have met these people and actually studied and learned something from them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you must have taken on so much from that experience, I can imagine. And probably probably quite um, I would imagine quite motivating, quite inspiring to to have that connection and you know, considering their their legacy and what they've done and uh all of that. How was that for you then?
SPEAKER_00It's a really strong feeling that um how can I explain it? I wasn't expecting so many things for myself. Okay, when I started dancing, I already was like 21, 22, something like that. So I had people already dancing for 10 years, and I'm like, I'm not gonna be able to keep up if I want to go professionally, I don't think that's a good idea for me. But having uh one particular, so Seku Hieru is one of the people that started with Maria Kari, the uh the shows uh when she was famous, and when she started uh going out of the US for shows, she was like the first choreographer she had. And having this guy, we met randomly in uh a small village in Greece because he had to teach there, someone brought him for us, and we started talking, and then we kept we kept in touch with uh with him for a year, and I said, Oh, okay, I'm coming to New York. And I'm in the middle of Manhattan, uh, in one of the dance schools he teaches there, and he stops the whole class and he says, Guys, I want to introduce you to Felipe, he's one of my students from another country, and I expect many things from him. And so when he started talking about me, I was like, Okay, now the bar is set so high that I need to show things. It was very heavy, but at the same time, uh, goosebumps everywhere. I was so inspirational to have him talking for me. Without even it wasn't script, like I didn't uh say to him anything. It was 100% him talking.
SPEAKER_04So it seems that you've got a lot of um input and influence from from various different countries, then you know, you've traveled to different places, you've met lots of people from different parts of the world, and I kind of got a feel for that in a lot of the the dancing that you were doing, that there was definitely influences coming in from various different places, and um it's it's super cool, man. Uh, and I uh I look forward to to showcasing some of your your work on on the podcast, and it's gonna be it's gonna be really nice. Um good. So, did you actually did you go to some sort of a a dance like a dance school, or is it really just experiences and and and working with different people and um that that's been your training?
SPEAKER_00Well, the reason I came to London was to get my certification because even though, yeah, okay, the whole dancing, I'm good and I can perform and everything, I don't have a certification, and sometimes it just makes me feel bad. I just don't. It's not that I need it, but more that I want to have a certification. I want this. I never studied in a university or something, okay? And I was very old when I started dancing, and I had to work because I was living on my own, and that's why I said I'm going to London and I'm gonna find a dance school, like study for three years and get a certification. It's not that I learned everything on my own, right? I've been in so many classes and seminars, dance camps, uh weeks in another country, but uh the certificates is not of a dancer, it is a participation certificate. You see the difference.
SPEAKER_04What what is a participation participation certificate?
SPEAKER_00That you've been to the boot camp is not like an exam. They will give you the certificate. It counts, it really counts because it shows that you studied. Yeah, yeah. But you don't have a grade or you don't have this communication with a teacher that your mistakes are gonna be seen by someone and it's gonna show you what you've done wrong. You can't be one it is art. So for me as a teacher, I don't always gonna show you the mistakes. I'm gonna tell you, but maybe a mistake drives you to something beautiful.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. So I suppose it's the thing with art though, isn't it? There is no specific right and wrong, it's not like maths or you know, English, uh, you know, or whatever it may be. You with art you've got that that license, haven't you? That freedom to to put your own stamp on things, and and and yeah, you have that creative creative right. Um, so yeah, I can totally understand that. Uh, which which so where was this place that you went to then to get the participation certificate?
SPEAKER_00So Czech Republic was one. Yeah. Uh in Corfu there was a really good uh four days, I think, five days. Uh a really good boot camp where I met all these people. I was telling you before with the Michael Jackson background. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, what else? New York, many dance classes, yeah, yeah. And I studied a little bit in London with some people.
SPEAKER_04And where did you study in London? I have quite a few UK listeners on here which might be interested to know where you were in London.
SPEAKER_00So Bass Studios is one of it. Uh-huh. The uh The Hub is another one, and in London, um, it was really strong. We didn't have this back in Greece. Uh, it's called Just Debut, which is uh dance competition. Uh but next uh the the day after the competition, they have two days of classes with all the judges of the competition, and was really interesting. But basically, I would say if you study hip hop mainly, base is the place to be. Okay, like really the network of this place and the energy of the people that own the base studios is amazing, really amazing. And where are they based?
SPEAKER_04In London? Bass studios?
SPEAKER_00Westminster.
SPEAKER_04Westminster.
SPEAKER_02Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_04There you go, guys. Anyone that's looking to go down the hip hop road and based in London, the Bay Studios is is is the recommended one right here. And what what led you down that path? Why did you want to become a choreographer? And and and what sort of productions have you been involved in on the choreography front?
SPEAKER_00So that's an easy one. Uh I always felt old because uh I was surrounded from younger people. I was feeling a bit bad because every time I was in a class or in a show, or uh we were just sitting the crew, it was me, 22 years old, and then everyone else around 15, 16, 17, 18. So this is how I came to see the whole dance scenery from a different perspective. And the moment I went to New York, I started creating a project called uh Journey of Movement, which I show to people how to express through the sounds, through the music, because everyone says music or the beat, music actually is a complex thing of maybe five different instruments to uh opposite harmonies, and the beats and everything is just adding on the whole thing that someone will call ah nice song. So I started separating all these things, and it felt so nice creating on the spot on a different beat every time, feeling the music, swimming in the music, and then creating certain things out of it. So when I started creating the project, it was for people to express themselves on the music the way they felt right. So, what I will what I'm doing in this project is when you come and you ask for the project to teach you, it's like two or three days I'm not teaching you. You are showing me who you are. Oh, I'm meeting I'm meeting you, I'm not teaching you. All right, and then I start from the injuries that you might have, uh the way you interpret the song and the music and the space around you, and the way your body moves, your flexibility, your strong, and your strong positioning of from maybe someone is strong in the hands, maybe someone is flexible in his back and waist, maybe someone is not flexible at all, and he doesn't have rhythm. The most difficult client, all right? I can imagine, yeah, with dancing. So um, so yeah, then that's how I started creating the whole thing, and from that it was so easy to start choreographing because I would write a script in my mind, I would hear a song, all right? And while listening to the song, I will be okay. So, what's the feeling that the song is transmitting to me? And then the movement, how fast does the song go? To choose from my skill set, because I've been from contemporary to ballet and then hip-hop, and then again contemporary, a little bit of jazz, and because I'm Ecuadorian, I studied with uh Latin people all the time. Uh so yeah, I will choose from all that that is in my head, which is the best to go with.
SPEAKER_04Okay, okay. So you mentioned jazz, Latin, hip-hop. You you you seem to be involved with quite a few different dance styles. Do you have a uh a preference? Do you have a a favorite style of dancing and and also to choreograph?
SPEAKER_00As a very angry young boy, I would say hip-hop. All the elements though, because everyone hears hip-hop and they never know what hip-hop is about. Breakdancing is hip-hop. The popping, locking, uh liquefied, um tatting, finger tatting, all these are on the same beat, and you can call them in history of hip-hop. All right, that's why even rocking. Which rocking was a mix of people that they didn't know how to dance, swing with a little bit of break. Okay.
SPEAKER_04When you say rocking, what what do you what do you mean as in rock dancing to rock music? Sorry, you you remember the swing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I remember swing, yeah. So rocking is uh the forefather of breakdancing, right? Okay, so before breakdancing was a kind of people uh mixing hip-hop elements with swing. I didn't know that, and even the DJs at the time were just messing around with uh rock country music and putting their own poses and scratches and mixes, and that was just wow.
SPEAKER_04That's very interesting. I had no idea. I had no idea whatsoever. Um, good stuff, I love it. Uh so your favorite type of dance is still hip-hop? Because you're not an angry young boy now, are you? You you you've got a lot more experience and life, life experience behind you now. So is it still hip-hop? Are you still that angry little young boy underneath it all? Or is there do you have other do you like other ones now uh equally?
SPEAKER_00I would say I would say it's still hip-hop. Still hip hop, okay. Yeah, but uh I have a soft spot for contemporary too.
SPEAKER_04Okay, interesting. I have uh I have quite a few friends who went down the contemporary dance route and uh trained at uh London Contemporary Dance School and Larburn and all these places. So I I know quite a I know a fair bit about contemporary dance. I love hip hop myself also. I don't think I'm an angry young boy, but I do I do have a passion for for hip hop music and also um I like to watch you know a popping, locking, break dancing, all those sorts of things as well. Um, which is why I enjoy looking at your work because uh it's the kind of stuff that I really like, yeah. Why do you dance? What why what made you get into dancing in the first place? And what what are the the effects that you're hoping to have on an audience that watch you performing uh and also watch the work that you produce and the work that you choreograph?
SPEAKER_00Wow. Uh actually, the way you started is my favorite question. I used to do I used to ask this question to my students a lot. So why do I dance?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um back in 2010 that I finished school, uh I had this amazing group of people uh playing music and I started singing, but I didn't uh use my diaphragm right. And one day we are on set and uh we're doing uh sound checks and I just froze because I couldn't hit one note right. We have to go, we have to go on live, all right. There are almost a hundred people outside waiting for us to play music, and I can I can't hit one right note. Okay, I had destroyed all my chords, and I couldn't even control anything, anything. So you destroyed all your your vocal cords, yes, everything. Everything inside my neck was ruined. So I went up stage, I had two or three songs that they were solo, so I couldn't avoid it. Yeah. I sang the way I sang, I don't even remember if people were excited or not about that thing. And I went back home. Uh I felt ill, um, my temperature went high. From all the sadness, I didn't cry at the time, but was really overwhelming the whole thing that happened. And I remember not talking to my girlfriend for seven days, maybe. Um, like I don't want anyone to be here around. And after seven days, I started feeling like okay, I need to continue with my life. So I went to a video club for all these millennials. I don't know if you ever knew what's what's a video club, okay? I rented I rented a DVD. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Oh, you mean you went to a video store, like a rental video? Oh, yes. I used to love going to those. It's one of the greatest travesties that they that they shut down. I I used to anyway.
SPEAKER_00Everyone is downloading right now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Blockbuster, that was a good one.
SPEAKER_00Massive plug for blockbusters. Yes, yeah. So I went to the store, and the release was like six days before I went to the store. It was Step Up 3, and I was never interested about dancing. I was really shy. Uh, I had no experience. And when I was like six years old, maybe I was dancing with my family. But that's it. So I rented the movie because there was nothing at all. It was only horror movies or movies I've seen already. So I got the movie and I said, Yeah, why not? I think I watched number one or two someday. But you know, it's the movie you you rent not to watch, but to have something on TV, right? So I put it on the DVD player and just sat there watching, trying to get interested. The moment the movie started from the music that was playing on the background and the things that the uh the dancers were saying explosion in my mind. Okay, I had goosebumps, I was waiting for the movie to start because it was just small interviews of the people that they were playing in the movie. And I got obsessed. The moment the movie ended, I remember standing on my head and trying all these yoga moves to stand on my head and stand on my shoulder and do things I didn't even know I was dancing at the moment. And after a month, I had the call from one of my friends back in school that we we had a crew of uh you know parkour and free running.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, I love it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we used to I love it. We used to parkour like uh 2007 and 8. Uh so he calls me and he's like, I'm a judge in a dance competition. You want to give it a try? Because he heard from someone that I was trying to dance at the moment, so I said, Yeah, why not? I went to the competition, everything was lovely. I had the crew interested in me, and we kept in touch for one or two months, and then I joined the crew.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00So for me to answer your question of why I dance, it was a way to express and save me from the whole black hole I threw myself because I couldn't sing no more. And when I got introduced in real dancing, like my crew held me and they taught me things, and I didn't even feel bad that my teachers were five years younger than me. Because the experience people don't understand that you can get experiences from everywhere and everyone. Age is just a number, experience and what you've lived in life is what creates the personality. You can do things in 16, and people in their 30s have never done. So I chose the weapon of dancing to express myself to let everything out of my system, and that's why when I started creating energies around me and scenery and the whole choreographed pieces that you've seen, it was just me showing to the world how I interpret the whole situation happening around me. All these small details in our day. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04What a great story, man. Um so what's going on with your voice now? Have you managed to get any work done on it? Are you able to sing now if you wanted to, or is it is it is it is the damage too great?
SPEAKER_00Or no, I'm fine now. Yeah, but problem I'm rusty. Yeah, that's a problem.
SPEAKER_04I'm only rusty, I can really sing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But did you have to go and see a vocal specialist, or did you have anything done on your voice to to help with the rusty? Or because I know when I was doing a show, a friend, an actor friend of mine, he um he blew his vocal cords as well before a show, and he had you know blood coming from from his throat, and it was very traumatic. Um, but he he had to leave the show, sadly, and we we had to bring in another performer, but um he uh he went to see a specialist and they gave him some you know instructions and things he should be doing and things he shouldn't be doing to take care of his voice and look after it.
SPEAKER_00And um, did you have any of that at all, or was it just rest and um just rest hand in water? Yeah, I went for um some classes then, and when I was ready, when I felt ready, because it took me like six months that my voice was changing all the time. I would hit high notes, I would hit low notes, like I was talking, and it felt like I was like you're a teenage boy again, 12, 13 again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I need to see someone, so yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I only rested for six months and then I started classes with uh vocalists to show me how to use my diaphragm because it was not only the thing that I blew up my chords and everything, but I had mind grains because the way I was singing, yeah, it was beautiful, yeah. I could hit the notes only from experience, okay. But everything I was losing air, and I could feel everything on my brain. Wow, that that was a problem.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I didn't even think about that, the effect that it could have on you know, tension and the neck and shoulders, and then the headaches. And um wow, yeah, it's pretty important to to get that training and make sure that uh that it's being done properly, and um, yeah. All right, all right. Um, that's a nice it's a good story though, man. I love I love uh the reasoning behind you getting into dance and uh step up three. That was the one for you, was it? Step up three. Did you watch the other ones? One and two as well, yeah, yeah. Nice.
SPEAKER_00Um, I watched everything because um hello to my friend Marikoda. So for you guys, I don't know if you know her as Kido, is the Japanese girl that doesn't have an accent in step ups. Okay, okay, she has an amazing personality, and she's in the film. She was actually so honored, yeah. Yeah, but she's uh one of the leading actors and dancers. Yeah, oh nice. Uh, from step up to to the end, actually.
SPEAKER_04Okay, maybe we can we can say hello to her as well on this episode. Connect you guys. Do you still see her?
SPEAKER_01Uh yes.
SPEAKER_00Um, we talk sometimes on Instagram, but no, she lives uh in Los Angeles now, she's doing her thing, yeah. She she has a beautiful relationship now, so always traveling together and going in crazy adventures, surfing, uh swimming in the most exotic bitches you will ever see. Uh yeah, she's amazing. She's amazing. Yeah, I had her classes back in 2015 in New York, and that's how we met. And stories and stories about Step Up and the whole sho behind the scenes. Okay, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. All the inside jokes, yeah, what nobody else gets to see, right? Not even a feature film.
SPEAKER_04Wow. I'll have to look at I'm gonna have to watch these films again now. I've done this interview with you and uh and have a look out for her. What her name was He Hido, did you say? Hido Hido Hido. Okay, I'll have a lookout for that.
SPEAKER_00She's uh the Japanese girl that she thinks she doesn't have an accent.
SPEAKER_04Okay, okay. I haven't seen him for a very long time, but I'm definitely gonna check them out again.
SPEAKER_00So it's been really difficult. It took me a lot of time to start working again with my social media. I I'm a little bit older than the social media fever. So I'm 20, I'm 28, okay? And I always like to have fun, which means I can't stop having fun and record to upload the story. Record me having fun, okay? Yeah, yeah. I had to train to do that, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's a whole different world, isn't it? I know the feeling. I'm I'm I'm I'm considerably older than you, but we're not gonna go into that. But uh, I've had uh it's similar with with setting up this podcast. Uh well, I I don't know, man. Maybe the lighting's good. Um, but yeah, so uh it's been tricky for me as well as making that uh that adjustment. And um, I I similarly to you, I if I'm having fun in a moment, I want to enjoy that experience and not be like I probably should be capturing this on camera in some way and sending it out to people. But um yeah, that's the kind of world that we're living in right now, particularly with everything being online, and um yeah, so go on. I I interrupted you, but yeah, as you as you were.
SPEAKER_00Uh you actually connected the dots. That's the that's the point uh of the whole difficulties that someone would have. Is like, yeah, okay, you have 10 years of experience in dancing, but I couldn't go to auditions, okay. I couldn't go to photo shoots, I couldn't go to anyone, so I didn't meet people that and we are in an industry that we're helping each other actually. Because I've been as a dancer, as a model, as a photographer, as a producer, as a choreographer, as a backstage creator, okay. So I can appreciate and know everyone, uh what everyone is doing uh to create a scene for the people that they're gonna watch on tech social or in a screen, okay? In general. So that's what's difficult for us. We need to communicate, we need to connect with the people around us with the same uh path of energy and the same way we create. So that was the problem for I think for us was the the biggest strike as an industry because we need to communicate with each other, and it took me a lot of time and seriously, I it's funny to say, but in our age it was really hard to train ourselves to create content for social media because that was the only way we could find a job or we could actually get some money on the side. Because without that, we didn't have a job.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I feel like all um all courses now, all drama courses, all performing, performing arts courses, dance, singing, whatever it is, there should be an element of digital content creative um a module that focuses on that to help performers. Because that is it's the biggest part of the industry at the moment, you know. It really is, and there's a lot of performers out there that just don't know how to do it, and um and they will they will be affected as a result of that, I think. You know, it's it is so so important now. I mean, if all the castings are online, um, you need to be involved in the right hashtags to get the right notifications so that you don't miss out on opportunities, you know, this, that, and the other. And it's just it's mind-blowing. And it puts a lot a great deal of pressure on, as if there's not enough pressure on performance as it is. There's there's now the added pressure of what am I missing? If I'm not staring at my phone every five seconds, what opportunity uh is passing me by? And um, I think there should be training in how to deal with that pressure and um and also training in how to use social media effectively so that you know performers can can get by much easier. Um and I don't know whether that's something that's happening at the moment, it's something that I need to look into, but um it should be for sure, because there's so many performers out there that are just very overwhelmed at the moment, I think, by by that. And obviously, COVID's not helped either, but um but yeah, you definitely touched on something there, uh for sure. It's something that needs to be addressed.
SPEAKER_00The problem I think is with our nature of business is that you need to share the same experience with the other person. That's why I would guess theater and musical is even more expensive than a movie. When in a movie you need more people to work with, right? But is the pure experience that you give to the people that they're sitting down and they're watching you, so that's why I feel like now that's everything so digital and record everything in your life and just throw it in the web is really cold, I think. It's very cold to have even for the kids. I had a conversation with um uh one stand-up comedian that the governments keep schools of uh like um ages three to six, okay, primary schools, and they keep them closed. You can't give them back what you're stealing from them. The the socializing, right? Um the the the attraction and the change of mind they're gonna have with their their other fellow students, and it's the first steps of their life, okay, uh of becoming a human, of creating their personality. And you take all that and you put it behind the camera. What will a teacher I I don't believe that you can call them teachers in that age, there's something more. But I would say they're guardians because they just take care of the kids and they trust transfer some basic knowledge to their brains, but most of it is to create experience to the to a kid, right? And you take all that chemistry, okay, all that situation, and you put it in a computer. It's not the same. You see what I mean? And even for us in older ages, you're gonna have the teacher to show you how to be sad, how to be angry, how to be happy, okay, from a camera. I don't think you will be able to understand the energy that you have to feel it's not gonna be transferred through a screen.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I I mean I've had experiences in the past where I've worked, I I do a fair bit of teaching myself, or have done previously, and um there have been workshops that I've been involved with where you are showing the kids, you know, a particular emotion, but you're showing it to them through not by talking about it or expressing it, but you're showing them pictures of emojis that they might see on a mobile phone. So it's like this is happy, and then you get the happy emoji icon, yeah, and it's shown to that child. So in their brain, they are thinking that they're just seeing everything through the medium of technology, through an app, through an emoji, through a phone. It's just bizarre. I mean, I know it's relevant, and I know that obviously you can't really stop it, and kids are going to immerse themselves in technology, it's just the way it is. Um, but I've just found that a little bit. I know why they were doing it, and I know why the kids connect with it, but it does seem a bit like why don't we just express the emotion and actually show the emotion through our own facial expressions or through our own vocal tones or this, that, and the other. And rather than here's a picture, this is how you should look if you're feeling sad through the medium of an emoji. It's bizarre, but um, yeah.
SPEAKER_00The world we're living in what you mean. Yeah, yeah. But I have a friend that he gave a book to uh his boy, his boy is now like five years old. The dude was searching where to put the batteries in a book.
SPEAKER_04Oh gosh.
SPEAKER_00Wow, so you know that's what people don't get. You don't need to change and evolve everything. Sometimes what we created 80, 100, 200 years ago, it's enough. Yeah, it doesn't need change. Yeah, go involve, go evolve on something else. That's perfected already.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, I agree, I feel I absolutely agree. It's bizarre. Anyway, um, so you have your own YouTube channel as well, and uh you've got plenty of videos and content that's being created and and uploaded there. Um, what is the goal behind the YouTube channel? Is that promotion of what you're up to? Um, what what goes into making those videos, like all the production elements? Because I've seen you do some where you're sort of out in the you know in the landscape and you've got beautiful backdrops and you're doing all these cool dance breaks and this, that, and the other, and then you've got some which are in house with you know fancy lights and you know the music and everything like that. And it's all very visually um visually stimulating. But but but what what goes into that? Do you are you responsible? For all of that, all of the production.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, actually, this is how I got into producing, uh, recording and editing. Uh, because uh I didn't have people back in Greece to help me with. So I went, I bought a camera, I bought lenses, lights, and everything. And I actually uh you will see the difference, like the new videos. You can see some life in the camera, like the camera is following me and all that. Yeah, while in the beginning, you see just something stable, right? Because I had to put the camera on the tripod, create the choreography, and then keep the same choreography, the same moves, right? And change the position of the tripod every time. Then I had to go to the computer and edit the whole thing, like cut the slide everywhere, do the color grading on my own. Uh, because sometimes we would be recording in two and and three different days. So I have I had to have everything on the same position.
SPEAKER_04But now you've uh so you have somebody else, somebody else that helps you with it. I have people helping me now, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You can't do everything alone. You can't do everything alone. You shouldn't. You shouldn't actually.
SPEAKER_04No, I need to get some more help for sure. Um, that's my next uh my next goal. Two standout moments in your life doesn't necessarily need to be work-related, it could be could be a life experience of some description. You've traveled somewhere, you've eaten a food, you've I don't know, rode a motorcycle, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00I have the one already in my mind. Okay, okay. Uh 2004, uh yeah, 2015. And I'm talking with Seku to meet him in New York, and at the same time, there was a misunderstanding. I was talking with a friend from Los Angeles and he uploads a picture on Facebook. No, a video of him, and I start, I write a comment to the video, and then there's a gentleman writing underneath me, and I write again, and he writes underneath me. And all that I didn't realize that I shared the video of my friend, but the notifications were coming from his video. And I thought that the gentleman was talking to my video, to my profile, and we started exchanging comments with the guy, okay. Uh so we started talking and we moved to the private messenger, and we start talking and talking and talking. Hello, Joe. Joe Rap is the name, amazing gymnastics teacher. Uh, if you ever been in Hawaii, guys, his uh his gymnastics place is just on another level, on another level, 10,000 square meters of just amazing scenery and places to train. Okay, so let's go to the to the story. So we start talking with him to a point like my parent, my parents thought I don't know geography, because they're like, dude, you're gonna move from New York to Miami and from Miami to Hawaii. And I'm like, yeah, why? It's the United States, dude. It's an a whole country, it's not the United States, it's not one country that you will move with a bus. Yeah, no. So I talked with Joe and I said, Would you like to meet? He says, Yeah, of course. I meet people all the time because of my children. Um so he has two beautiful twins, Tamara and Tiara. That uh Tamara is working with Red Fu from LFMFAO. And Tiara had some history with Cirque de Soleil, okay, and the older and the older children are working in Cirque de Soleil. So he said, Yeah, of course, I meet people all the time. I say, okay. So I book a ticket from New York to Hawaii and I stayed there for 10 days, and it was just life-changing. You hear people talking about Hawaii, but especially when you know the culture and the life there, uh it's just amazing. It's just amazing. It gave me a different perspective of life and how I should look at things. For me, it's a small paradise. I don't know if I could live there because of uh the heat. It's too much for me. But is that why you chose the UK? No, not really. I wasn't expecting that. I mean, Greece is okay. Um, my house is New York, actually. I think I could call home New York. Yeah, yeah. Or Ecuador if if I can buy, I can go back sometime.
SPEAKER_04Is Hawaii any hotter than Ecuador?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Is it? Yes, guys. I had the sunburn uh under a pine tree. I don't know how how I managed to do that, but I couldn't feel my leg and just look at it and it was red. Oh my god. Under a pine tree. I'm like, I don't know.
unknownI don't know.
SPEAKER_00Beautiful but lethal Hawaii. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Wow, there we go.
SPEAKER_00You need to be in the sea all the time until the sun goes down, you need to swim. That's it. Swim and surf. I didn't know that. Didn't know that at all.
SPEAKER_04Lethal sunshine over there. Um always. Would you rather I'm gonna are you ready to roll? Yes. All right, let's do it. One, would you rather never get a paper cut again or never get something stuck in your teeth again? Never get something stuck in my teeth. Okay. Number two, would you rather never have another embarrassing fall in public or never feel the need to pass gas in public again? So don't fall in public or don't fart in public, basically.
SPEAKER_00Don't fart in public. Okay. I mean, if you fall, you can always stand up and continue. Yeah, yeah. It's dance mentality.
SPEAKER_04So you're gonna fart and carry on as well, and plenty of people do that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, but if you get discovered, then uh you're punching. Yes, there's shame.
SPEAKER_04Shame, absolutely. Um would you rather take amazing selfies, but all of your other pictures are horrible, or take breathtaking photographs of anything but yourself?
SPEAKER_00Um trick question. Um I would go with uh amazing photographs because I'm not the type of selfies, not that much.
SPEAKER_04No, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00I'm more of creating a scenery than having my face on. So yeah, I would go with the second.
SPEAKER_04Okay, I like it. Uh all right, and last but not least, would you rather never be able to leave your own country or never be able to fly in an aeroplane?
SPEAKER_00Never be able to leave my own country or fly in an airplane. I can't stay in one country, man. I can't. I just can't.
SPEAKER_04I think that's clear, but I'll take the bus. You've lived everywhere, Felipe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. I'll take the bus, I'll take a train, I don't mind.
SPEAKER_04Good. All right, mate. Um uh and lastly, final thoughts for the episode. Uh, something uplifting for our audience members, an approach to life dealing with positive and negative change, that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00All right. Um, I would say because I will say I'm a little bit pessimistic sometimes. So don't be. And whatever makes you feel like you're afraid of moving on or just uh thinking that you're stuck, move on. Just try and break that wall that you created. Everything is in our mind. And I really believe that the worst enemy is us all the time. So in the last two years, what I'm trying to do, and what I would really like to see other people do, is never let yourself uh put the boundaries on you. We're overthinking all the time situations, possibilities, um ways to avoid things that sometimes we just stop ourselves, and that's it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I love that. So don't stop yourself, don't get in the way of yourself, don't get stuck in a situation, keep moving forwards, or just embrace what what what's what's happening. Um good, I love it. Felipe, it's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for coming on today.
SPEAKER_00Thank you very much for having me. It was really nice talking to you. Yeah, the problem with the light, so hopefully, if we have a second chance, everything's gonna be better.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, everything is all good, man.
SPEAKER_00You look amazing.
SPEAKER_04With my with my colorful backdrop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all about the visuals, man. You know about that. All right, mate. Um exactly. Take care and uh I'll be in touch.