We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ivelin Giro a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Ivelin, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I get my resilience from my own personal experiences, especially those that affect me the most emotionally, those that help me to learn and grow as a person. Usually through mistakes, pain, uncomfortable situations and the acceptance of it in this school, named life.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I was born and raised in Havana, Cuba. At an early age, I began studying theater and folk dance, and later taught dance to young children in Havana. I
studied acting with the renowned actor and director Alejandro Lugo, who founded the
Actors School of the Cuban Broadcasting Institute. I also hosted the program Revista de la Mañana Cubana for the Cuban Television Network ICRT.
I was chosen as the most popular model in fashion and became the first Cuban model after the Revolution, to sign with an international modeling agency in Europe. I lived in Milan and then Paris where I had the opportunity to walked in couture shows for designers Giorgio Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Karl Lagerfeld, Chloé, Givenchy and Valentino, just to name a few, alongside industry luminaries Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and all the top models of those years. I was also featured on many magazine covers for international prestigious magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Madame Figaro and others.
After my modeling years in Europe, I moved to Miami to helped my family to get out of Cuba. There, following my dreams, I studied at the New York Film Academy and co-founded an experimental theatre company called Obstáculo (Obstacle) with its director Victor Varela. Obstáculo provided acting classes for adults and children, as well as producing original theatrical works.
After my first role in the play “I Take Your Hand in Mine” and other performances in theater, I continued acting on TV, leading many roles on episodes of the Telemundo series “Decisiones”, different soap operas for Univision and Televisa and sharing the big screen with Will Smith in the movie “Bad Boys 2″, with also Steven Bauer and Rafael Amaya in other movies.
I decided to do a puase in my acting career to be with my 3 children Zoe, Samuel and Marlon in their adolescence. Behind the screen and always exploring in my needs of creating, I designed and founded a fashion brand called Touche Muah, centered on underwear made from organic bamboo which will relaunch soon.
During that pause, I have also took on the role of executive producer to produce the documentary Mambochella, collaborating with Director Fabian Cardenas and Executive Producer Adeline Ferro. The 2-time Emmy winning documentary showcases an extraordinary gathering of acclaimed artists from around the globe, collaborating to produce an album that pays homage to Mambo’s golden era while infusing it with diverse elements. Offering an inside look at the recording of Mambo Babalu’s debut album, “I Love Mambo,” at Miami’s Peer Music Studios. Mambochella unveils 12 tracks honoring the original Mambo Kings: Perez Prado, Benny Moré, Tito Puente, Machito, Tito Rodriguez, and Cachao López. This significant reunion brings together renowned musicians, vocalists, and descendants of Cuban music icons, many of whom hadn’t shared a stage in over three decades due to political tensions in Cuba. Originally aired as part of PBS’s film-maker series, “Mambochella” earned two Emmy Awards in December 2023 for Best Nostalgic Documentary and Best Editing. Award that we also thank the extraordinary actress and producer Kiki Melendez founder of Omni Cultural TV Festival for which we had put together Mambochella.
Now I live in Los Angeles where I am continuing with my acting career and also, I am getting ready to release my memoirs in a book that I have been writing for the last four years, offering a glimpse into my life experiences, fashion and politic.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
-Discipline, hard work, perseverance. -Resilience, Learning and growing from each uncomfortable situation and mistakes, and believe in miracles.
-My advice for folks who are early in their journey would be, to find their gift, their talent, the passion of their soul and study and learn everything they can to get ready to achieve their dream, no matter how long it would take. Never give up on your dream. Believe, work hard, and keep believing on yourself. Dream big, or you will end up working for those who do.
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
My biggest area of growth has been in developing my expressive abilities in wrtting.
After 4 years of a long learning process where I continuously acquired knowledge from reading different authors, listening to podcasts, listening to audiobooks, taking literatures classes online, I finally felt comfortable writing, and I was able to finish my book.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mambobabalu.com
- Instagram: @imivelingiro, @cf.deivelingiro_oficial
- Facebook: Ivelin Giro
- Linkedin: Ivelin Giro
- Youtube: mambo babalu
Image Credits
First photo of me, black and white by Marlon Pacheco. “I love mambo” album cover by PicoAdWorks, “Mambochella” poster by Nelson Ponce. Photo of me, next to an old red car in Havana by Ray Kay. Photo of executive producer Adeline Ferro, Fabian Cardenas, director of Mambochella and me from 2023 Suncoast Emmy Awards Photo Gallery.
