Avant-Garde designer, Iris van Herpen

Dancing & Me

The Background

Where do I even begin? I guess the beginning is after all the best place to start.

I was born in Johannesburg but bred in the beautiful city of Cape Town. I started dancing at the tender age of 6. I have always loved music as a child and placing me in front of a speaker was apparently the best way to put me to sleep but when I was up and awake I was always moving and shaking my limbs and had a ton of energy. My mother then eventually decided to take me to my first dance class - tap dance classes! Unfortunately something came up and I had to quit. It was then when my mother found a place nearby that did rhythmic gymnastics and a bit of modern... I didn't really care too much about the rhythmic gymnastics - I had fun doing it anyways. Didn't take long for that moment to pass and we found a studio near my primary school I went to at the time. Here I had the opportunity to learn modern dance, jazz, musical theatre and hip hop. I also took gymnastics as a school sport for a year and a bit - I had to decide between dancing or gymnastics. Aside from the bullying I faced in school I still chose to take dancing going forward. Did this for a while and absolutely loved every second of it. Primary school came and went, and then high school. I was in grade 8 when a dear friend of mine got into a devastating car accident which took her life away almost instantly. (Still in my thoughts.) This left me in pieces and dealing with it wasn't easy and the only way I knew how to manage my emotions was through dance. Although, at that time, the styles I've been learning didn't seem to help me get what I was experiencing out of my system. This was when I found out about contemporary. So did a bit of research and spoke to a few people and I found another studio that worked comfortably in a scouts hall down the road. They took me in with open arms and understood exactly what I was looking for. I found myself gaining maturity here and a deeper understanding of what this art form can do for the soul. High school came to an end and I needed to take my dancing even further - realizing I wanted to potentially have a career in dance. A friend of mine told me about CAPA (Cape Academy of Performing Arts.) I did ballet every morning six days a week and studied drama too - alongside contemporary, hip-hop and jazz and I  got to work with a handfull of brilliant choreographers from around the world. It's an environment where an artist will be pushed to their very end and grow as an individual, improving the way you think and work. Having graduated at the end of 2018 with a diploma, I now face the big wide world with everything I've learnt up until now. I'm very interested in the choreographic side of things and I've choreographed a few winning pieces for my past studio back home.

I'm incredibly excited to continue learning as much as I can from the industry and I believe you can never stop growing and learning - which makes me a very happy person! Here's to a bright future and I'm so ready to take on whatever is thrown my way!