How old is montana efaw

On top of her regular training, she would travel multiple hours each day to New York City and New Jersey for classes with Steps on Broadway and the Princeton Ballet School, respectively.

Her bedroom walls were lined with cutouts from the pages of Dance Spirit , which served as inspiration for her goals. Her mother, Terri Garcia, was a professional dancer in the s she even danced Francisca in the West Side Story tour in , and Garcia-Lee was eager to follow in her footsteps. Garcia-Lee went to high school at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where she studied first ballet and then drama. As a sophomore, she was cast as Graziella in her school's production of West Side Story.

The magic of performing Jerome Robbins' iconic choreography never left her. She's been banging on West Side Story 's door ever since. All the while, she held out hope that West Side Story would someday come her way. In , Garcia-Lee was considered for Graziella in the Broadway revival but didn't get the role after countless callbacks. After that, two more productions didn't cast her as Graziella. For the Broadway revival, she was only offered the opportunity to audition for the role of Anybodys.

She turned down both opportunities in favor of other projects—she would wait for Graziella. Despite the rejection, she was undeterred. So when Deadline published an article announcing the film remake, Garcia-Lee felt that playing Graziella was meant to be. At the audition, the casting room was filled with many of her friends and fellow Broadway darlings, like Eloise Kropp Cats and Jonalyn Saxer Mean Girls. According to the film's choreographer, Justin Peck, Garcia-Lee quickly caught the eye of the creative team.

I could sense that from the first audition. At the same time, she was committed to the Broadway run of Moulin Rouge! She spent much of the winter and early spring of trying to figure out how to do it all.

She asked if she could miss some rehearsals and most preview performances including the all-important first preview performance so she could film her scenes in the movie. I'll never forget Steven up on a ladder, then Steven halfway down the ladder, and then Steven on a rolling chair, Steven lying on the floor looking up at [the choreography] this way, Justin tweaking and tweaking.

Rehearsals for the iconic "Dance at the Gym" scene lasted two weeks. Before the work began, Garcia-Lee says, she familiarized herself with Peck's work as much as she could to get a sense of his style. However, I loved the challenge of it. Once rehearsals wrapped, filming for "Dance at the Gym" lasted six days, and according to Garcia-Lee, her feet never hurt so badly in her entire life. But that didn't stop her from soaking up the magic. Especially on the day she and her co-star Mike Faist Riff shot their duet.

We lost ourselves in the art. We finally got to the end of [the take and] Mike and I fell to the floor. Steven ran over to us, dove on the floor with us and smothered us with love. It was magic. But all those celebratory can-can kicks came to a crashing halt in March when the pandemic hit, just as she felt she was "stepping into the height of her career. Though she thankfully recovered, she was left wondering what the future would hold.

Several months later, it was announced that West Side Story 's release was going to be pushed back a year. Garcia-Lee spent her days volunteering at a horse stable in Brooklyn. It was the first time in decades she found the time to get back into the saddle like she did as a kid growing up close to the Bucks County farms.

She found solace and comfort around the horses. Then, with the help of her dad, she drove across the country to L.

She wanted to focus on acting and find something new to give her purpose. But that doesn't mean she let go of dance. As studios resumed in-person classes, Garcia-Lee returned to the dance floor.

The learning curve right now is having a lot of grace with myself. When it comes to professional work, Garcia-Lee's been auditioning for film and TV projects while cultivating the next phase of her career. She also dreams of playing Roxie in Chicago on Broadway. After a yearlong delay, she is physically and mentally ready to celebrate playing Graziella. The timing is exactly right.

Photo by Jayme Thornton. Let's face it—dance is HARD, and in order to achieve your goals, you need to be committed to your training.

Not convinced? We talked with dance psychologist Dr. Lucie Clements and two multifaceted dancers, Kristen Harlow a musical theater dancer pursuing a career in NYC and Kentucky and Kallie Takahashi a dancer in her final year at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts , and got the inside scoop on how having hobbies outside of dance can inform your artistry, expand your range and help prevent burnout. Dance Spirit : Are dancers less committed to dance if they have other passions? Lucie Clements: Definitely not, in fact I would always encourage a dancer to have more than one passion.

Having multiple hobbies helps you to maintain balance in your life, brings perspective, and will also bring lots of new skills into your life that will likely transfer into dance. At only 18 years of age, Montana Efaw is already making a name for herself.

How did this come about? I was fortunate to book that job. So when I got the call from my agent that I was chosen to be booked for the Monster Ball World Tour it was like my dream came true. Oh man! Gaga is such an incredible talent. It is a dream job to dance for her and go full out at every performance for her. Dance and performing is my passion. For me, the key when making that move to LA is to have a plan! So looking back at those years, every step I did brought me closer to that.

Although I am 18 years old, I had prepared for the move for several years with training, traveling, working hard and grasping every dance opportunity along the way. And did I mention training, traveling, training, traveling…. Your career to date reads like a dream, what advice would you give to aspiring commercial dancers? Get into the best studio in your area and train, train, train! In all styles! I'm home! She makes her way through the studio, wearing sweats, a baggy tank top, a flannel shirt tied around her waist, and an armful of black studded bracelets.

Older dancers squeal and hug her; younger students look attentive but nervously keep their distance. Slowly, everyone spreads out and gets ready for the class.

Efaw introduces herself, the music booms through speakers and the dancers move their bodies in a familiar warm-up sequence. She leads the group through complex counts, explaining things in numbers, technical terms, sound effects and precise descriptions. She spends the next hour and a half guiding the packed room through a high-energy, minute-long routine she choreographed to a techno-rap song called "Steroids. McKinney, the studio director, and Efaw's mother reminisce while the group, tired and sweaty, sits in a circle and asks Efaw about Lady Gaga and life on the road.

Efaw is strictly forbidden from speaking publicly about working with Gaga, but she is obviously happy to be on the tour. You're really performing your character and it's nice. It's cutting-edge, it's out of the box, it's something fresh. I couldn't even have dreamed of someone as cool as her. Efaw says her non-work life is laid-back.

She likes sleeping on the dark tour bus, and is a self-described reality TV junky with a soft spot for. She'd never want to be on a reality show herself, even a dancing one such as. I wouldn't want to have to turn on an act for a camera. But Efaw doesn't need to worry about being on reality TV because she's content with the life she's leading.

And getting to see the world I'm just trying to enjoy it while I'm in it, because I feel like I'll look back and say these were some of the best times. Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission.

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