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family Archives - Sparkles Lund

Mar 28 2015
1

buildaBEAST by immaBEAST Workshop Announced

By | Dance, Friends | 4 Comments

BuildaIf you follow me on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook (links at the top of the page)  you probably already know that I am blessed to be on a team called immaBEAST. Well, specifically the “imma”s are the older kids and young adults. Part of the immaBEAST team are the lilBEASTS (15 and under), and that’s me. The good news is that there will be a workshop that starts July 28th. On the final day, August 1st, everyone gets to audition for a spot on the immaBEAST team! You can get discounted tickets for the buildaBEAST workshop and immaBEAST auditon now if you buy them before they sell out! $400 earlybird special http://www.immabeast.co/buildabeast

Over the past year, training with the immaBEAST team has been really fun and amazingly rewarding. I have had the opportunity to train on a team that is 100% professional dancers. Everyone is freakishly talented.

My #lilBEAST Story

In 2013-14 I took some classes with Will WilldaBEAST Adams at Millennium, The Pulse, and 24-7 Dance. He called me out to do a duet at 24-7 which my dad recorded. It is really poor quality video (https://youtu.be/11b11nbtd88) but you can see that I was super inspired by the choreography. At the time, I felt really confident with my skills in Jazz and Musical Theater, but understood that I needed a lot more work on other styles including Hip-Hop. There is something about WilldaBEAST’s style of sharp footwork and hard hits blended with moments of smooth swag that I truly love. Anyways, after the class he told me about the audition to try out for his team. I was so excited that I almost peed my pants.

The Audition

I had been a professional dancer for a couple of years before the WilldaBEAST audition. I was used to going to big auditions with hundreds of people and young superstars. Don’t get me wrong. When I show up to these things and see dancers like Leah Roga, Boogie Tinay, Sophia Jahadhmy, Kaycee Rice, Jordyn Jones, Larsen Thompson, Soni Bringas, and so on, I know that I gotta bring it! But the WilldaBEAST audition was a whole new level. The talent level was so deep that even a great dancer could easily drown. WilldaBEAST says that 2400 people auditioned! Here is a video that recaps last year’s audtion https://youtu.be/z1dwkFL0EbY

Season 2 immaBEAST teamOn June 11th, WilldaBEAST announced the #lilBEAST team. Kaycee Rice, Lexee Smith, Gabe Deguzman, Larsen Thompson, Jaron Snyder, Josh Price, Taylor Hatala, Nike Tracreee, Tessa Brooks, Sophie Reynoldson, Phoenix “lil mini,” Kennadi Boese, Leah Roga, Kaylyn Selvin, Sean Lew, Kade Pait, Jordyn Jones, Big Will Simmons, Soni Bringas, Sophia Jahadhmy, Zealand Yancy, Boogie Tinay, Sierra Neudeck, Tati McQuay, Talin Silva and….. Sparkles Lund! Here is my blog post about it. http://sparkleslund.com/?p=353

The Journey – We do this just because we can!

  • July 2014 – lilBEASTS perform at The Pulse in Las Vegas for the closing show – win the Choreography Award! Killed it.
  • August 2014 – immaBEAST DVD released featuring the entire team. Becomes a top selling instructional DVD for hip-hop dancers http://sparkleslund.com/?p=413
  • October 2014 – worked one-on-one with WilldaBEAST and Janelle Ginestra http://sparkleslund.com/?p=17014
  • October 2014 – immaBEAST performed at DanceON in Los Angeles at an event featuring the stars of the upcoming movie Beyond The Lights. – Here is our video https://youtu.be/qYre6y7NJKs
  • November 2014 – on set for the filming of a video to Touchin, Lovin for Trey Songz featuring Nicki Minaj – http://sparkleslund.com/?p=17033
  • November 2014 – lilBEASTS do a video for @Ciara “That’s Right” https://youtu.be/ruAshPdTdrM
  • December 2014 – I book a job to dance in the season finale of Dancing with the Stars with fellow immaBEAST dancers Trinity Inay, Soni Bringas, and Jordyn Jones,  https://youtu.be/IuYmnhr8hEA
#immaBEAST crew selected for Dancing with the Stars

#immaBEAST crew selected for Dancing with the Stars

The Journey Continues

Being on immaBEAST is a blessing. Will is one of the most humble, hard working, generous, and genuine people I have ever met. He surrounds himself with people that are not only talented, but have big hearts. The team is really a family of people who help each other and I have made friendships that I expect to span a lifetime.

Kaycee Rice TwinningNo matter where I go – a convention, a competition, an audition, or even a class in LA, I am bound to run into another member of the immaBEAST family.

Join Us!

I hope that you can make it to the #buildaBEAST event. Again, be sure to get your tickets right away. It will sell out fast.

Jul 28 2014
1

Dance Craziness Pt. 2

By | Competition, Convention, Dance, Friends | One Comment

When I left off on my last post, I talked about how much fun Hollywood Vibe was. In this post, I will talk about how exciting The Pulse Las Vegas and my first performance with #lilBEASTS was!

Sparkles Lund and Will Adams Willdabeast

Willdabeast

Jordyn Jones and Sparkles Lund

Jordyn Jones

We left for Las Vegas on a hot summer’s Thursday and got there at about 3 ish. It was probably 103 degrees outside. I felt like I was going to pass out. Once we got into our room, we went straight to the pool to find some of my dance friends Jordyn Jones, her brother Skylar, and Sean Lew. We probably swam for about 2 hours and then Jordyn and I decided to go shopping. There was a very large mall across from our hotel, called Miracle Mile because it’s a mile long. We went there for roughly 2 or 3 hours and then had to go to rehearsal for #lilBEASTS.

The next day, I went to the pool again with Jordyn and we stayed for about 2 hours. At 2:00 p.m. that day I had my first day of classes at Camp Pulse. Those ended at 5:30 and then I had an acting class with the one and only Lane Napper. It was so much fun! We did a few improv exercises and practiced saying a little bit about ourselves on the spot.

The following day, I had classes starting at 9:00, and they ended at 2:00. At 3:00, I had another #lilBEASTS rehearsal before our first performance. After that rehearsal, we all felt very prepared to perform.

We were the 10th number so we all got to watch the dances before us. They were amazing! So amazing, that the time went by really fast because they were so good. The dancers at Pulse are some of the best of the industry. Many of them are professional dancers and they know how to perform for an audience. I enjoyed the show a lot.

I was really excited when it was our turn to perform because this was the first time we performed live as a team. The audience loved us. We even won an award to bring our crew to the Open Call competitions in 2015. Can’t wait to perform more with my fellow #lilbeasts and work more with Will, our director!

If you missed the first post in this series, go back and look at http://sparkleslund.com/2014/07/23/dance-craziness-pt-1/

 

Jul 23 2014
1

Dance Craziness Pt. 1

By | Auditions, Competition, Convention, Dance, Friends | One Comment
Hollywood Vibe

Hollywood Vibe

I’m so sorry I haven’t written in a while, I’ve just been really busy with all of the events that I have been participating in for the past few weeks. There’s so many of things going on that I’ve decided to break this into two or maybe even three posts! I am just going with the flow depending on how much of this I get done today. The things I’ll be talking about in these two or three posts are Hollywood Vibe Nationals, The Pulse Las Vegas, #lilBEASTS video, and Macy’s Glamorama. That’s a lot right? I guess I’ll start with Hollywood Vibe Nationals, so that I go in time order.

This crazy week all started on Thursday, June 26, with my first scholarship dance rehearsal. We learned this dance over a video sent to us in an email. Unfortunately, my video wouldn’t play, so it was very stressful for me once I got to rehearsal. I had to learn every single piece of the choreography on the spot that day.

The next day was our first day of classes, taught by Hollywood Vibe’s superstar faculty. We learned all styles in these classes for four days. Also, during those three days I had competition. After the first day of classes, I performed my trio entitled Whipped Into Shape and my solo, Bees Knees, which was competing for Dancer of the Year. After the second day of classes, I had all of my small groups with the rest of the juniors. We were lucky enough to win 1st Place in the lyrical category and Best Costume with our gorgeous lyrical dance, Tears of an Angel. After the third day of classes, I had both of my large groups, Feels Good and MJ Tribute. Both got Platinum but didn’t place. After the fourth day of classes, it was finally time to for the Final Night Gala. This was where the National Dancer of the Year for each age group was announced and I got to perform the scholarship dance and the Dancer of the Year finalist piece that we had been working on for the past week choreographed by Liz Imperio. Both of the dances felt great and then it was time to announce Dancer of the Year, and Vibe Company, which means you get to assist the teachers and perform with the faculty. They started with Vibe Company, and I got it! So did my good friends Juju, Trevor, Tyler W., and Jordan. We were all super excited but we were eager to find out who won Dancer of the Year. They started announcing the juniors, it was no one I knew. Then they moved on to intermediate. Unfortunately, I did not win but that’s okay I’ll just keep trying and maybe I’ll get it next year! They moved onto the teens I did not know the female winner, but Trevor won for male! Everyone was so excited that they didn’t even pay attention to anything that happened after that.

I had a bunch of fun at Hollywood Vibe and can’t wait for next year!

In the middle of Hollywood Vibe, I had to drive to Los Angeles for #lilBEASTS rehearsal. Which leads to the next post…….The Pulse Las Vegas and #lilBEASTS Showcase Performance.

Here is Part 2 of the series http://sparkleslund.com/2014/07/28/dance-craziness-pt-2/

Jun 11 2014
0

#lilbeast AUDITION 2014

By | Auditions, Dance | 3 Comments

Two Sunday’s ago, I auditioned for the popular hip-hop crew owned by Willdabeast, lilBEAST. There is also another crew for ages 14 and over owned by the same person called immaBEAST. For those of you who don’t know what a hip-hop crew is, it is a type of dance team that specializes in hip-hop. These dance teams called crews perform at many events including World of Dance and Carnival, two very big dance shows. Today, I will be telling you all about my experience auditioning for lilBEAST.

At 1:00 on June 1st, I went to LA to audition for lilBEAST. The line was wrapped around the whole building so I was very worried that it was going to be very hard to be noticed, but once we got inside of the room it wasn’t too bad. We started learning the choreography and I understood it right away. I was pretty proud of myself because usually it takes me a while to pick up the choreography. After we learned a lot, we split up into groups and the judges chose who they wanted to move onto the next round. I, luckily, was one of those people! I was so excited!

After that round, I had to wait a while because they had the boys go first, and then I went. I killed the choreography, meaning I didn’t forget any of it and I went super full out. To make things even better, I made it through that round too! After that part, a bunch got to freestyle if they wanted too, and that was very fun because of all the different styles that people did. This was pretty much the end of the audition, except that we did the combination a few more times but it wasn’t judged.

Once it was really over, my mom and I thought we should thank Willdabeast for inviting me to audition and being so kind to me, so we did. We had a nice long chat and then he quietly told me that I made it but it’s still a secret. After that, I thought I was going to pass out I was so excited! At that moment, I knew that I have officially “made it” in the dance industry.

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Jan 20 2014
1

2014 Dance Numbers

By | Competition, Convention, Dance, Friends | One Comment

Alexandra Sparkles Lund PrintThis year in dance I have been working on 4 small groups, 1 large group production, 1 trio and three solos. Our first competition of the year is coming up this weekend in Santa Clara. The title of the competition is LADM (LA Dance Magic). It is not only a competition but also a convention which means that we get to learn from their fabulous faculty and assistants.

Small Group #1: Numb,

choreographed by Katie Scofield, style: contemporary, dancers: Maya Spriggs, Larkin Paddock, Mariah Urbano, Taylor Costa, Camille Cattaneo, Claire Grzincic, Trinity Terassas, and me

Small Group #2: Proud Mary,

choreographed by Tahirih Ellison, style: jazz, dancers: Juliana Keller, Trinity Terassas, Camille Cattaneo, Taylor Costa, Larkin Paddock, and me

Small Group #3: Tears of an Angel,

choreographed by Keara Blake, style: lyrical, dancers: Ashlie Andrade, Anna Devereaux, Trinity Terassas, Camille Cattaneo, Juliana Keller, Taylor Costa, Maya Spriggs, and me

Small Group #4: Rags or Riches,

choreographed by Jillian Clark and Jordan Neil, style: hip-hop, dancers: Mariah Urbano, Sidney Domingues, Trinity Terassas, Levi Spriggs, Camille Cattaneo, and me

Large Group Production: Feels Good,

choreographed by Re’Sean Pates, Dylan Tarrant, Jillian Clark, style: hip-hop, dancers: too many to count

Trio: Whipped Into Shape,

choreographed by Keara Blake, style: musical theatre, dancers: Camille Cattaneo, Juliana Keller, and me

Solo #1: Krazi n’ a Box, choreographed by Brooklyn Jai, style: hip-hop

Solo #2: Bees’ Knees, choreographed by Jillian Clark, style: jazz

Solo #3: Cosmic Love, choreographed by Mitchel Federan, style: contemporary

All of these dances I love for different reasons. For example, Tears of an Angel I like because of the technique in it, and Numb I like because of its unique style. I hope you enjoyed me telling you about all of the dances that I am in this year!!!

If you want to see when and where DPAC will be performing – look on my calendar page here.

 

Jan 09 2014
0

Sick at Christmas Time

By | Friends | 2 Comments

Unfortunately, over Winter Break I was extremely sick. I had a fever of 104, an awful headache, and I was really congested. But luckily, it was only for the first week. The second week was soooooo fun! I went kayaking, saw three movies in theaters (Anchorman 2, Saving Mr. Banks, and Catching Fire), and of course…. Opened presents!

You know how I said I opened presents? Well, I didn’t actually do that on Christmas day. I felt fine on Christmas Eve when we went to church, I even felt okay when we were eating delicious lobster tails for Christmas Eve dinner! After dinner, we opened one gift (family tradition) and I received Christmas pajamas. I heard that a lot of families get their Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve.

That night, I went to bed thinking about all of the presents I was going to get. Tragically, I got an awful stomach ache in the middle of the night. I got up, and went to sleep with my parents. On Christmas morning, I was so sick I couldn’t walk. My dad gave me a piggy back ride to the living room to see all of my presents, but all the festive colors made me puke. Back to bed I went. I felt so bad I didn’t even care about missing Christmas! My parents were cool about it. We decided that the whole family would delay Christmas until I felt better. The good news is, I was well enough to open my presents the very next day.

I thought it was awful that I had to miss Christmas, but what I took away from it was the true meaning of Christmas. Being with your family and celebrating the holiday is the greatest gift of all, no matter what day it is.