Today, we’d like to introduce you to Noé Monsivais.
Hi Noé, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
When I was a little boy, I didn’t know I was deaf in my right ear. My teacher told my mom that I leaned facing my left ear a lot when she was talking and suggested that my mom get me tested. When the doctor told my mom of my deafness, he also told her I would never be able to do things that required balance or good hearing, such as play an instrument or dance.
Of course, my mother didn’t share this with me until I first showed interest in joining the middle school band. She said she’d let me try out because she believed in me and had faith in God. However, she wanted to share what the doctor told her in the interest of full disclosure to me. I am so blessed to have my mom, Susy, believe in me with such strong conviction that I succeeded in making it to the band and ended up playing the Tuba. Later in high school, I found out about a mariachi class and a folkloric dancing class. I tried to do both and was successful, too.
From those early successes and the support of my mom, my sister Ana, and my dad Pedro, I never doubted I couldn’t do anything. As a result, when the year 2000 came around, I told myself, “If I survive Y2K (dating myself here), I will make it my goal to learn a new skill every year. I have kept up with that promise to myself to this very year. Eventually, one of those skills was salsa and bachata dancing.
Though I took a decade break from dancing, I eventually returned, and now I have a Latin Dance Studio called Monsivais Latin Movement here in Nashville, TN.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
You know that adage, Rome wasn’t built in a day? That’s because they kept trying to smooth out all those roads that lead to Rome! Similarly, my journey has not been a quick one. There have been a lot of physical and emotional ups and downs, but it is my journey and has shaped me into the person I am today.
Referencing an earlier moment in life when I decided to learn a new skill yearly, I became autodidactic for some things, like learning how to whistle and seeking help from others, like how to play the guitar or the violin. Because of my hearing impairment, dancing has most definitely been one of the passions that I struggled with the most. You see, having mild deafness can make a person 3x more likely to fall. “If the hearing loss is greater, the risk of falling increases” (Southern California Ear, Nose, and Throat website). As a reminder, I was born deaf in my right ear.
In consequence, it is hard for me to walk straight if I’m distracted, like being engaged in a conversation. Now, if I struggle to simply walk straight without bumping into my talking partner, imagine how much more challenging it is to spin straight without toppling over my dance partner. Learning to spin was definitely one of the most difficult things to learn to control. Nonetheless, I have managed to overcome these obstacles through perseverance, amazing dance coaches such as Amanda Ewing and Terri Feliciano, and the thought that no one can tell me what I can’t do!
Aside from that, learning from various instructors over the years was a challenge. Especially in big, crowded rooms, as is usually the case in dance congresses. Sometimes, I can’t hear what the instructors are saying. My occasional lack of confidence, due in part because of my hearing impairment, has prevented me from speaking up and asking them to repeat the explanation again.
With that said, I have taken my prior experiences, learned from them, and tried to convey the patience people have had with me to my dance students and dance partners.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a dance instructor who focuses on teaching the Latin dances of salsa and bachata. In the Nashville dance community, I am known for being the most fluent English and Spanish-speaking instructor, as I was born in Mexico but grew up in a border town called Hidalgo, TX.
Because my university studies focused on how to be a public school teacher, I specialized in finding different methods of teaching the same concept until a student could understand it. Now, I specialize in teaching leads how to lead and follow how to read the lead with more clarity. What this means is that if a lead dancer has good lead technique and a follow dancer has a good understanding of how to respond to said technique, then it doesn’t matter if they’ve never danced before.
Their first dance experience together will look as if they’ve danced prior to their first encounter because both partners have picked up good lead/follow technique. I teach my group classes Salsa on 1, but I also teach Salsa on 2 in my private lessons. Additionally, I also teach a regional Mexican dance called cumbia and a Dominican Republic dance called merengue.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Funny story. Once in college, I got set up on a blind date. I took my date to a salsa club, but I didn’t know how to dance at the time.
After about two songs, I asked my date how good of a dancer I was. I was half serious, but she wasn’t playing around when she told me, “Actually, you’re a terrible dancer. I am leaving.” She grabbed her purse and walked off. I said, “Okay. I guess that’s that.” I went to the restroom to wash my hands before taking off, and there, I found a business card stuck to the mirror that read, “Want to learn to dance?” Since I hadn’t decided what skill I wanted to learn that year yet, I told myself, “Why not!” So, I took the business card and went to find the locale the next day.
It turns out that the dance instructor’s studio was just a rented storage space unit, and he had an extension cord running to it in order to connect a stereo and play music while he taught. Despite my hesitation, I had already decided to learn to dance, so I took that first class in a rented storage unit. I enjoyed it and kept returning. My instructor, David, mentioned that I was learning at such a fast pace.
Things his students would take 6-8 weeks to pick up, I would pick up in 2 or 3.
He offered to train me for free in exchange for a commission if I ever decided to teach classes in the area. As a college student, free sounded very attractive to me. I took him up on his offer, and we started training more consistently. That involved traveling to various dance congresses across the US, which is where I was exposed to other styles of dancing within the Latin dance genre as well as renowned instructors from around the world. In the end, a little bit of bad luck led me to recognize an omen that I decided to follow, turning that bad luck into good luck.
As I continued with my dance journey, it seemed that God kept intentionally sending people to cross my path at the right time and for different learning experiences. Following David, I met a person with contagious laughter. I invited her to my dance class, but she refused. After her friends encouraged her to take the class, she finally took her first salsa class with me. I didn’t see her for a month but instantly recognized her laughter.
I was honest, and I told her I didn’t remember her name but that I did remember her laughter. As time went on, we got to know each other, and Marina, or as I call her, Minis, became my wife. She helped me get my first choreography contract for a quinceanera. Through our daily dance practices for that quinceanera, I started to learn more and more about her. From Marina, I learned to be a patient, kind, and loving person.
Over time, I took a 10-year dance hiatus. Eventually, we moved to Nashville because it was Mini’s dream to do so. I just needed to leave the Texas heat behind. We moved months before the pandemic. After things started opening up again in 2021, Mina suggested we take a dance class. That’s where I met Amanda Ewing! What I had learned over a decade ago started to come back like flashback segments, as things were being unlocked once again, in quick progression. I tried hiding the fact that I was not a new dancer in the scene because I didn’t know how much I actually remembered.
However, Amanda quickly caught on, as she would use me to demo the dance move of the week. The teaching bug hit me, and I asked Amanda if I could join her as an assistant in her dance company. I told her my dancing background and was clear to her that my training was unfinished. She decided to continue my training, and that is where my dance journey continued. She said I could be with her dance company until I was ready to start my own. I joined her in the summer of 2021, and to this day, I still teach in her company because we became great friends and amazing dance partners!
Amanda introduced me to many local dance instructors, all of whom I took classes from to fill in some gaps in my dancing knowledge. Eventually, I ended up taking a casino rueda class from an instructor called Tasha. This dance consists of a large group of people forming a giant circle and dancing one or two moves before switching to the next partner without breaking the circle. Next to me was a person named Jen Steitler and her husband Rob. Jen jokingly said, “Please teach my husband how to dance,” and we laughed because we were all there taking the class.
I ended up sitting next to her at the tables, and she asked about my dancing journey. I told her I used to teach in Texas but that one day, I would end up becoming a teacher in Nashville. I told her, “Give me a year, and I’ll be teaching here in this same place.” In less than a year, I was actually teaching at Plaza Mariachi, where I met Jen. Fast forward to 2024, and now, Jen is my other dance partner we co-teach for Monsivais Latin Movement. We both get co-trained by our bachata coach, Terri Ann Feliciano!! As luck would have it, sometimes the smallest conversations can lead to the greatest feats imaginable.
Pricing:
- Salsa Group Classes – $15
- Bachata Group Classes – $15
- Private Classes – Email monsivaislatinmovement@gmail.com
- Special Events – Email monsivaislatinmovement@gmail.com
- Weddings – Email monsivaislatinmovement@gmail.com
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mlmdanceco.square.site/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mlmdanceco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MLMDanceCo/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@mlmdanceco
Image Credits
@KristinaDeckerPhotography, @BrogenDavisPhotography, and @MonsiMediaMagic
