Matthew Chin

Re­porter

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

Re­bec­ca Chan has spent years train­ing as a dancer, adapt­ing her feet to the styles of jazz, bal­let, and con­tem­po­rary dance. How­ev­er, when she was cho­sen to be a show­girl for the cov­et­ed Parisian cabaret of the Moulin Rouge, her life got a ma­jor up­date.

Ear­li­er this month, be­fore the 25 year old pro­fes­sion­al dancer left her trop­i­cal Mar­aval home for the city of love, baguettes, and crois­sants, aka Paris, she had spent two weeks lim­ing with her fam­i­ly and friends and tak­ing a short trip to To­ba­go. Be­fore de­part­ing for France, the dancer sat down with Guardian Me­dia at her Mar­aval home to share her jour­ney and goals for the next five years.

Look­ing back at 2022, Chan au­di­tioned for the Moulin Rouge cabaret in Lon­don, which she said was a fun ex­pe­ri­ence, de­spite its chal­lenges. Two weeks lat­er, the com­pa­ny called ask­ing her to join the Moulin Rouge in Paris. She was in shock.

“I wasn’t ex­pect­ing it at all; it was a huge shock–I had two weeks to move to Paris! My fam­i­ly and friends were all in shock as well. Peo­ple were like, ‘Oh my God, Moulin Rouge?’ Every­one was su­per ex­cit­ed,” she said.

The Moulin Rouge was found­ed in France in 1889 al­low­ing both the wealthy and poor to en­joy colour­ful spec­ta­cles of both dance and song in ad­di­tion to ex­trav­a­gant dé­cor.

Liv­ing and work­ing un­der­neath the Parisian lights for al­most two years now, she loves the city for its ar­chi­tec­ture and ease of trav­el, al­low­ing peo­ple to move about with mi­nor headaches.

“I can bike some­where or walk wher­ev­er I need to go. And the ar­chi­tec­ture there is beau­ti­ful, the build­ing façades, it’s all very old and pre­served, it’s not mod­ern at all and I love that about it. I’m very grate­ful to live there,” Chan said.

She al­so not­ed that she is the on­ly Trinida­di­an in the cabaret, with most of her peers from Aus­tralia, Eng­land, and Cana­da. In­ter­act­ing with them, Chan re­called mo­ments when they would be con­fused about Trinidad and To­ba­go’s lo­ca­tion on the map and how she even ar­rived in Paris.

Chan ex­plained, “It was like, ‘How did you end up here (Paris)? You’re from Trinidad,’” adding that their cu­rios­i­ty stemmed from there be­ing no au­di­tions for Moulin Rouge in the Caribbean.

While many of us may view the dancer’s scored for­tune with the icon­ic cabaret that is Moulin Rouge, the pro­fes­sion­al dancer, now turned for­eign­er in Eu­rope, ad­mit­ted that the glitz and glam­our of the job does not erase the self-doubt that dancers like her­self can face.

“The adren­a­line rush you get on stage is amaz­ing. But there are times when you doubt your­self. As dancers, you take it very per­son­al­ly if you’re get­ting a lot of cor­rec­tions or not get­ting the spots you want. You have to re­main con­fi­dent in your­self and re­mem­ber you’ve done the train­ing,” she said.

De­scrib­ing her role, she said the show­girl tech­nique was akin to “learn­ing a new style of dance” which is spe­cif­ic to the show.

“It’s al­most like its own type of dance. It’s sim­i­lar to jazz but it is its own thing. At Moulin we do the can­can, frilly skirts, the red, white, and blue, kick our legs, and do kart-wheels; it’s a high-in­ten­si­ty dance orig­i­nat­ing in Paris and that it­self is its own tech­nique com­plete­ly,” she said.

Chan’s favourite move to per­form on stage in the cabaret is the jump split.

When she was five years old she start­ed train­ing in bal­let at the Bent­ley Pot­ter School of Dance un­til she was nine. She al­so at­tend­ed the Caribbean School of Danc­ing/Meta­mor­pho­sis Dance Com­pa­ny where she trained for four years from the age of 14 to 18 years old be­fore earn­ing her bach­e­lor’s de­gree in The­atre Dance in Lon­don, Eng­land, at the Lon­don Stu­dio Cen­tre.

Re­flect­ing on her younger days to where

she is to­day, how­ev­er, Chan re­vealed that the art world had al­ways been her friend, hold­ing her hand through­out life.

“I’ve al­ways been art­sy,” she said, “I would say the main two things I’m in­to are draw­ing and paint­ing. I al­so love yo­ga and pi­lates, any­thing with body move­ment,” Chan said.

Fol­low­ing bal­let, there was jazz and con­tem­po­rary dance. Her first job as a dancer was in the Thurs­ford Christ­mas Spec­tac­u­lar in Nor­folk, Eng­land. She al­so toured spe­cial needs schools per­form­ing with In­ter­play The­atre, which is a the­atre com­pa­ny based in Leeds, Eng­land, be­fore danc­ing at the Lon­don Cabaret Club. And then ac­cept­ed by the Moulin Rouge in 2022, where she has been work­ing for a year and a half ever since—six days a week!

“My job is very hard­core and rig­or­ous. I work six days a week, two shows a night. You need to be fit, you need carbs for en­er­gy, take care of your body, and eat prop­er­ly. This is your whole ca­reer. I don’t take any sup­ple­ments, I just eat a lot of food. I would need a good bowl of pas­ta or stir-fry,” she laughed.

With any pro­fes­sion or prospects a per­son may have for them­selves, it is not un­com­mon for oth­ers to be opin­ion­at­ed and judge what makes an­oth­er per­son hap­py.

That is why, ac­cord­ing to Chan, when it comes to danc­ing, some doubt whether the art form is a “re­al” job.

“A lot of times peo­ple don’t see danc­ing as a re­al job, they’re not aware of all the op­por­tu­ni­ties dancers can have. Al­so, they’re not aware that dancers are out there cre­at­ing work for them­selves,” she said. “I think, hon­est­ly, that’s the most ful­fill­ing way to be a dancer.”

When asked what she thinks her dance ca­reer in the next five years may look like, she said she was open-mind­ed to what­ev­er comes her way, with teach­ing and chore­og­ra­phy as the main two ar­eas she’s con­sid­er­ing pur­su­ing. Fur­ther­more, when she re­turns to Trinidad, she said she may be in­clined to start her own dance com­pa­ny, teach­ing lo­cal dancers the lessons of what it takes to be a cre­ator, both on and off the stage.

“I want to start cre­at­ing my­self, in­stead of just danc­ing, cre­at­ing my own chore­og­ra­phy, maybe my own show; these are just dreams and ideas that I have for my­self,” she said.

“I’ve been train­ing in dance for so long, and I know I’m good. I just need to re­mem­ber that I got this job. I’m here for a rea­son.”