How did you get your stage name?

My stage name was ingeniously thought up by Andrée Deissenberg, our artistic director to highlight the two sides of my personality: sparkling and spicy!

How did you get into dancing?

My history with dancing is atypical. I took my very first dance lesson when I was twenty-one! Actually, my foremost passion, as it relates to the entertainment industry, is singing. From a small church choir to funk bands, I’ve always sung! At the same time, thanks to my various experiences in gymnastics, theater and the circus arts, I developed a consciousness of my body, yet that wasn’t enough. I had this deep-rooted desire to dance. When I turned twenty-one, I got to a point in my life where I knew I wanted to assemble the different stagecrafts I’d learned into one. So I attended a musical school in Paris and that’s where I had my first dance lesson!

When did the Crazy Horse become a part of your life?

Very late! To begin with, I grew up in California, thousands of kilometers away from Crazy Horse Paris. My father was in the military and so we moved around a lot in the US and in France. When the dream of becoming part of Crazy Horse Paris started to take shape, I had just started learning how to dance and I knew I wasn’t up to par. When I turned twenty-seven, after years of hard work, I told myself that I should give it a shot before it would be too late. At the musical school, I had learned to dance and to act, but above all I developed my personality as an artist and I think that’s what helped me the most in getting into Crazy Horse Paris.

Notoriously intimidating, can you tell us how your audition at Crazy Horse Paris went?

I was among the last to arrive and was taken aback by everyone’s tense expressions. They were probably all terribly stressed out, but at that moment I was like “Great! Get out your sun!” I could pull out my ace card by being cheerful and open! I convinced myself that I wasn’t nervous, just excited and that I had to make every advantage of this incredible opportunity given to me to be able to step onto Crazy Horse stage. After my performance, I bumped into Psykko Tico who said “That’s good, because when you’re nervous, you laugh!”. Et voilà, I didn’t expect it to, but it worked! It was a magical experience for me!

You’re a dancer at Crazy Horse Paris. Is there an even crazier dream you’d like to fulfill?

My first ambition was to be able to advance my career at Crazy Horse Paris and just recently, I was given, on top of being a Crazy Girl, a job as Crazy Entertainer. These are two very different assignments and I’m getting a lot of precious experience. My more long-term goal is directing shows or movies. I’ve had this passion ever since I was a teen and, little by little, it’s catching up to me.

What needs to be the main skill of a Crazy Horse dancer?

The very essence of a Crazy Girl is stage presence and charisma. While I was being trained at the Crazy Horse, I remember being completely dazzled when I watched the dancers entering their dressing rooms to get ready for the evening’s show. Each one exudes a very special and bright aura. That’s what radiates from the Crazy Horse dance troupe.

Which scene of the Totally Crazy! show do you think is the most amazing?

Vestal’s Desire ! The more I see it, the more I dance it and the more mystical I find it. It’s quite different from the other acts and that’s also what makes it so inspiring. Something’s really happening here, you get the feeling it’s opening some sort of spatial temporal dimension on the Crazy Horse stage. It should also be noted that it produces the most stress among the dancers. There’s a delicate balance of entering and exiting the stage and the repetitive and very technical movements of the body are difficult to master and maintain over time.

Photos : Rémi Desclaux, Riccardo Tinelli