We recently connected with Aimara and have shared our conversation below.
Aimara, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
Coming from Bolivia, a country where art is not taken very seriously, I used to have a lot of doubt and guilt about the fact that art was my passion, it also isn’t a country that is very recognized. I treated my background as a weakness. So I decided that everything was a strength. My culture, my passion, my character. You don’t choose where you are from, what you look like, or your circumstances, but you decide what you make of them. I found my purpose when I realized that I could use everything that makes me “me” to create value for myself and my dreams, and the ones around me. I want to engage myself and others with art in as many ways as I possibly can throughout my life, creating value with what I do, for my community, for whomever chooses to engage with creativity. I don’t have a path, but I have many ideas to bring to life, and that’s my purpose.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I was born in Spain, raised in Bolivia, my family instilled art as a fundamental part of my life. I learned about culture through music and movement, started dancing when I was two and never stopped. I trained in several styles from ballet, jazz, contemporary, to flamenco, folklore, latin dance, and more. I’ve always had a deep love for music and the preforming arts so I always knew my path was art. I decided to pursue the preforming arts as a whole because I fell in love with drama and music as well. I trained and got degrees in musical theatre, acting and dance. I love interacting with the arts in many ways, that’s why today I am an actor, dancer, choreographer and teacher. Art is my language, I use it to have conversations that move something in whoever chooses to engage with creativity.
I currently live in New York, work in all areas of the performing arts, and recently had my Off-Broadway debut on “BARBA – A Brazilian body percussion musical”.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
One of my mantras is “do you want to be rain, or just stand there watching it fall?”, I think confidence is crucial, but I mean confidence as fuel for your journey. Understanding that whatever you want to happen you have to make it happen yourself. You have to be rain. That’s one of the main things that drives me, I want to be rain in everything I do. Create opportunities for myself and others. Something that I had to learn too is resilience. The world will tell you no more times than it’ll tell you yes so you cannot let the obstacles or falls drag you. You have to take the lows and use them either as a lesson or as a stone to step on to get you a little higher. And something that was a hard pill to swallow but necessary is independence and self-awareness. There are several beautiful humans that will go through life with you, but the only person you will ever really need is yourself. So as harsh as it may sound, you need to be your best friend and your harshest critic. You are the one that knows how much work you put in, so you have to determine if you deserve a kiss on the forehead before going to bed or a little slap to do better tomorrow. I stopped expecting anything from anyone else, good or bad, because I can only control what I do with life and how I react to life.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
I think having strengths is great, and you should work hard to make those strengths your greatest qualities, but I think there’s great value in pursuing things outside of them. For most of my life I put everything into dance and I don’t regret any of it, but I feel that my greatest growth has always been because of the things I pursued with fear. I hate not being great at something. When I started training in acting and music I felt stupid all the time because I wasn’t as good. The same with sports. But I realized that you’re only as good as the amount of time and effort you put into your craft. So by investing my time and effort on improving and training new skills I learned a gained tools from different disciplines and perspectives, and to me that’s where you win in life, when you learn. I like to think that you don’t have strengths, you build them. I work to have more strengths to help me build the dreams I have.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @morenamulticolor
- Email: [email protected]
Image Credits
Sanket Dikshit Krystal Pagán Nurselle
