My Story
God, Dance, and People
Joél Casanova was born in Chicago, IL and raised in Dallas, TX. He started dancing HipHop at 11 years old and for the next 5 years danced on competition teams. By the age of 16, he was choreographing professionally. Joél move to Virginia Beach at 18 years old, where he pursed a BA in Journalism, was staffed at Academie de Ballet, and performed in theatrical dance productions with Masterworks USA. In addition, he received training in Ballet and Modern from Mr. Elbert Watson. Joél Casanova created and founded BeatHunter Dance, a headquarters for dance innovation, at age 20. At the same time, he wrote the Personal Kinetic Curriculum, which develops the personal style of dancers. Joél is a young dance professional with a deep passion for dance performance and instruction as well as writing and choreographing original dance productions.
Learn more about Joél's dance story and BeatHunter here.
My Dance Identity
Performer
Performing has always been exciting to me because it connects me with the audience. I strive to show them quality art that is relatable and touches them on an emotional level. My performance experience ranges from national dance competitions to theatre productions to music videos. I plan to add onto this experience and relatable, quality art with my own dance productions that I am currently writing.
Teacher/Coach
Master HipHop Instructor
HipHop is my foundation. I have been training and teaching HipHop for a decade. After discovering Modern, Ballet, and other techniques, I fused the two worlds and created my personal dance style, U-Mod.
When I teach, I am aware that I am teaching dancers and people. My goal in every class is to grow the individual along with their skill in dance. This led to a unique dance curriculum called Personal Kinetic©.
Personal Kinetic Coach
Personal Kinetic is a dance curriculum that coaches dancers in the foundations of dance for the purpose of developing their personal movement. Creating this curriculum gave me the opportunity to go beyond the boundaries of specific genres of dance--each student is has a movement that I am attempting to bring out of them.
I teach workshops, master classes, and private lessons in both HipHop and Personal Kinetic.
Educator
My love for Dance goes beyond simply performing or teaching. I want to educate. As a speaker and writer, I inform my audience that dance is an artistic tool to be used. It can heal emotions, create identity, and strengthen the mind. As a teaching artist, I educate students in their core academic subjects through dance so they can receive the benefits of both.
