Meet Trailblazer Luciana Da Silva

Today we’d like to introduce you to Luciana Da Silva.

Luciana, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born on the South of Brazil in a family of two sisters and a brother. My parents were owners of grocery stores and a dance club. Since an early age, I was exposed to negotiations, customer service, and entertainment. I grew up helping my parents not only at the grocery stores but cleaning and organizing our home, cooking and taking care of my younger siblings It was on Sundays after working at he grocery store and washing the lunch dishes that my day would be delighted… Dad would let me and my older sister go to the matinee dance at his dance club. We both would have a few hours of dancing with pure joy before the driver would come for us. It was uncountable times he would be searching for me and find me hiding under the tables in hopes of staying a little longer.

I grew up among musicians who used to come to dad’s disco clubs to play every weekend as well as some dancers and can remember very clearly the day we received some Samba dancers from Rio de Janeiro. As a little girl, I was mesmerized with their costumes and dancing. It didn’t take much for me to get up on stage and dance with them and that experience created a wonderful memory for me.

My favorite hobby was to close myself in my room and dance songs of Madonna, Michel Jackson, and some Brazilian bands while changing clothes and acting in front of the mirror.

It was at age 18, I had the most painful experience of my life when I lost my best friend in a car accident I was a driver. I know what deep depression feels like and the desire to not be alive. I carried so much pain and guilt for many years accompanied by fear and nightmares.

I could barely keep myself together since that accident the break up with my boyfriend who I thought was the love of my life. All that happened at once and I was living away from my family who didn’t know I was not attending my pre-college training but living in a dark apartment almost like a vegetable.

I managed to get into college and started studying psychology at a private and expensive college which I abandoned two years later since dad couldn’t pay it anymore.

I went to live with a boyfriend who I found out to be verbally abusive to who I spent three and a half years of my life… it took me some time to build my confidence and find out I was so much happier away from him. I had wonderful friends who supported me and helped me to put my pieces together. I went from being dependent on my parents to a man and through a lot of pain to myself. That experience taught me years later I would never allow anyone to be abusive with me ever again…

I reconnect with myself and decided to take flamenco and belly dance classes 4 times a week but ended up stopping when I decided I was tired of living in a cold place and moved to the Northeast of Brazil to be two blocks of the beach. At that time, I was in sales business and could live just about anywhere. I made good money, walked the beach every morning and made good friends. I was exposed to a different culture from where I came from and even though I felt lonely most of the time, I was happy to be close to the ocean.

It was in my late 20’s when I met an American airline pilot/climber who after 1.6 years of long-distance relationship brought me to live in the US. We lived for 1 year in Atlanta and I was shocked with the American culture. It was unbelievable to me to see how much waste of all kinds happens here. I also noticed that there is one driver for each car and public transportation was not the same as in my country. Hopefully, I drove and was able to take free English classes at a Church where I made some new friends foreigners like me. I spent most of my days swimming on our complex pool or practicing belly dance from videos a friend lent to me. ..

One year later, we moved to Colorado Springs and did not take much time to realize I was again sharing my life with a verbally abusive man. I thought I had learned a lesson and I was wrong.

From that relationship, I got the most precious thing I could ever imagine, my beautiful and lovely son Rio who is 10 years old nowadays. I raised Rio as a single mom pretty much his entire life and I became my own village raising him for most of the time. I did have some help from a lovely American woman and another amazing dancer and drummer woman from Senegal. I will forever be grateful for those beautiful souls.

My life got so exciting when I was invited to work as an event coordinator for a non-profit called Smokebrush Foundation, not only I love that job for all the events I could create or help others to succeed on theirs, I could take as many yoga classes I wanted and teach my own dance classes. I also developed a wonderful relationship with Smokebrush’s founder who many times acted as a mother to me.

As everything comes to an end, that job last five years and I decided to adventure moving to Boulder where I knew a few people and hoped to find a new place to grow as a dancer and find a place to call home.

I made plans to go to live with a Brazilian friend right after returning from Brazil, he was a drummer and father of four kids, I thought it could be a good idea to help a single dad and combine our talents. I had some big dreams of starting my own dance company with live drumming and since we were great friends I thought that would work. Well, his ex-wife came back to live with him while I was in Brazil and didn’t take to long before she kicks me and my son out of their basement I found myself and my son homeless on a winter night…

I believe everything is for a reason and I did let that experience to put me down, I lifted myself up and found a room to rent, I started a part-time job at a restaurant and taught dance classes and took care of my kid.

Life goes around and once again I faced myself homeless but my dear friend, the drummer, which today, I call brother, opened up his home and together we lived like a family for about 1.5 years. We worked together in a few events and to this days we help and love each other. He is my family here and I am his.

I recently moved to Denver, I have a dance company with wonderful women, I teach Samba classes every Monday to a group of extraordinary ladies and I am creating Viva Brazil Festival, a four days dance and music festival happening from October 3rd to 6th in Denver, Boulder, and Loveland. I found a wonderful man also claims to have found me and we have been living together along with my son for the last 1.5 years. He is so wonderful to me and my son and finally, I feel like I have a family, a stable relationship and career and a place to call home.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Being an artist has not always been an easy journey. It took me many years to even understand I was an artist, the idea of academic education in Brazil is synonyms of success. I have never been a standout student even though I was great at acting and sports, I struggled every year. I finally find peace about not having formal education when I became an event coordinator about 10 years ago. It was also then that I started teaching dance class and realizing how happy I was doing things I loved. I encourage everyone, man and women of all ages to pursue their passion and make the best of it. It will be hard and the obstacles are real but we all sooner or later will connect with our true selves and understand who we are and who we want to be in this world.

Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I’m a native Brazilian devoted to sharing authentic traditions and the culture of Brazil to audiences and students around the world as presenter, performer, collaborator, and teacher. I am passionate, about dance and music from my country and found on this art forms inspirations to adapt myself in the American culture.

My specialties in Brazilian dances are:
• Samba no pé
• Forró
• Samba de Gafieira
• Samba de Roda
• Symbology of Orixas dances
• Popular dances of Pernambuco including Côco, Maracatu, Frevo and Caboclinhos
• Creative dance and fusion
I also have many years of training in Belly Dance and Flamenco

Some of my work was collaborative community productions for the stage and producing traditional Carnaval-type “parades” in the streets with a celebratory flair. I also work with locally available artists for my productions and to keep Brazilian culture alive and fresh for audiences and students, I often bring skilled artists direct from Brazil.
I started presenting annual Brazilian and other world dance productions in 2014 with Viva Brazil in Colorado Springs and Broomfield, Colorado. For 2019 I am producing a four days celebration “Viva Brazil Festival” featuring over 30 entertainers, musicians and dancers from each two are coming from Rio de Janeiro and other from Bahia residents in the USA. This festival will be presented in Denver, Boulder, and Loveland and I am so honored to be able to bring this production beyond its initial place, Colorado Springs. I was very fortunate to Europe in 2017 to perform or teach in Prague, Czech Republic, Berlin and Barcelona on my first European tour. I also have paraded in Rio de Janeiro with the Mangueira Samba School, Uniao da Ilha do Governador (in the passista ala) and Unidos de Belford Roxo in 2015 and 2019 respectively.

I consider myself a dedicated teacher who introduces children, beginners and general audiences to dance, culture and costuming of Brazil as well as Experiential Lectures about Brazilian culture to schools and seniors centers.
Through intensive studies across Brazil directly from the source in Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Santo Amaro, Recife, and Águas Belas where I had a residency with Indigenous Tribe Fulni-O, I am always deepening my learning and diving deep into the traditions, movement, and expression of Brazilian dance. I truly believe through music and dance or the arts we can heal our emotional and psychological wounds, we can find comfort as immigrants in a new country and unite communities.

So much of the media coverage is focused on the challenges facing women today, but what about the opportunities? Do you feel there are any opportunities that women are particularly well-positioned for?
The challenges are huge and the opportunities especially in careers like politics, science, religion, and construction, to name a few, are still favored to men around the globe. I have seen a little bit of progress and I know we have long ways to go. I do believe we women are capable of achieving anything as long as we want to.

Pricing:

• My group classes of four classes are $60
• My performances are negotiable
• My presentations are negotiable
• My dance company’s fee is negotiable

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lucianadasilva.org
• Phone: 7192006054
• Email: luciana@lucianadasilva.org
• Instagram: lucianadasilvadance
• Facebook: lucianadasilvadance

Image Credit:
Photographer: Randy Poe

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