We’re back again with a “Dancer Spotlight”! Today we are featuring Pedro Gamino from Atlanta Ballet:
How did you become involved with dance?
My parents. They wanted my sister and I to have experiences they never had growing up. So they put us in dance and sports.
What is the best advice you have ever received from a teacher or mentor regarding dance?
When performing it is never the same show twice so give it all for yourself and the audience.
What has been your greatest challenge?
Dancing in sync with another dancer through some very difficult choreography. Being correct on the counts is one thing but to be together and feel their timing and energy takes you to another level.
Do you have any advice for dancers who want to go on to a professional career?
Keep open to all different styles of dance. The style you are least comfortable with–go after that one first. So many young dancers try to limit themselves to just ballet or jazz or Hip-Hop. The more well rounded you are the more exciting of a dancer you will become.
What do you enjoy most about your life in dance?
I’m getting a chance to do what I love to do. Especially now being in the same company as my new wife (Faye Abigail Tan-Gamino). We got hired at Atlanta Ballet together and stuck by each other through each experience/challenge and now we’re happily married.
What is next for you?
I would like become a PT either for dancers or for professional sports. Preferably football. Football is my guilty pleasure. Go Niners!!!!
BIO: A San Francisco native, began his training at age 13 with the San Francisco Academy of Ballet and later studied at the San Francisco School of the Arts High School and the School of American Ballet in New York City. Pedro returned to San Francisco to begin his professional career with the Smuin Ballet, where he worked with noted choreographers Michael Smuin, Amy Seiwert and Shannon Hurlburt, and also enjoyed a stint at Dayton Ballet where he worked with choreographers Septime Webre, Dermot Burke and Steven Mills. Eager to get back to the east coast, he accepted an opportunity to dance with American Repertory Ballet (ARB) in New Jersey. There he danced ballets and world premieres by Val Caniparoli, Lisa de Ribere, Twyla Tharp, Susan Shields and Graham Lustig among others. Pedro joins Atlanta Ballet with friends and former ARB company mates Abigail and Jared Tan. In addition to ballet, Pedro is a skilled Mexican folk and tap dancer, a former soccer and baseball player, and an avid bowler. Pedro is very happy to be a part of the Atlanta Ballet family and looks forward to a great season.