Today we’d like to introduce you to Chazmin Brown.
Thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Just like any other cliche beginning, I started dancing in the womb. My mother put headphones around her belly when she was pregnant with me, and I instantly started moving around. From that moment on, my parents knew I would be a dancer.
Growing up in Antioch, Tennessee, my parents always created a safe space for me to express my creativity and movement. I fell in love with freestyling around the house, doing popular dances of the 2000s, and making choreography for talent shows. From the age of 2 to 13, I danced competitively/trained at multiple dance studios around Nashville (Ridley’s, Cathy’s, Nashville School of Dance and Music, and IT Creswell) training in ballet, tap, contemporary, jazz, and hip hop.
In 8th grade, I decided to stop dancing and play sports. During freshman year, I tore my ACL playing basketball and physically fought hard to get back where I was, but mentally I could not get over it. Soon my senior year came, and I knew I would be miserable if I tried to play college basketball. I decided to let it go and find something new to explore while at Austin Peay.
For the next three months, I struggled with being a “regular” student and having so much downtown outside of class and homework until I had enough. I decided to think about all the creative things I could do while still in school, and I thought, “Dancing has always been my passion, so why stray from that?” I immediately started looking for a dance class in Nashville and went. After my first class in about four and a half years, I concluded that sometimes you have to leave something to understand how essential it is to your purpose in life.
Hard work, grit, consistency, and longevity are words that I hold very close to me while embarking on my dance journey. Since November 2020, I have been locally and regionally training, working on gigs, and cultivating my love for dance. My two huge moments came shortly after I had been training vigorously for a year. In 2021, I landed my first big gig to be in Morgan Wallen and Lil Durk’s “Broadway Girls” video (big thanks to Natalie Aaron) and received the opportunity to perform with Pleasure P at the Memphis, TN show of the Millennium Tour (big thanks to Deja Carter) in 2022.
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Being creative is never easy and is a never-ending journey of growth.
Some of the struggles along the way are figuring out how I want to introduce myself and my style to the world, figuring out who I am as a person, finding and maintaining confidence, keeping a strong and positive emotional and mental body, not comparing myself to others, keeping the right people around me, finding jobs that will fit my unexpected and spontaneous dance schedule and still support my career, learning to amplify my voice.
Not being afraid to connect with new people despite being antisocial at times, creating content and regularly posting it, taking care of my body, eating correctly, exercising outside of dance, giving myself grace, finding out where I spiritually stand, and most importantly having consistent discipline.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a professional dancer who currently dances in music videos and on-stage performances. In my free time when I am not traveling to train or working to invest in my career, I occasionally teach pop-up heels classes under my dance brand, “Dance Sh*t” to give back the knowledge I have learned. “Dance Sh*t” was created this year to encourage artists to develop their uniqueness through movement and dance foundation… in the flyest way possible through teaching heels classes (plus more coming soon)! I specialize in hip hop and heels, performing and entertaining when dancing, emoting, and surprising others with my technique background.
I would say I am known for being very different in my approach to dance. I feel as if you are creative, you should always dive deep and do your proper research relating to your craft because mental training is just as important as physical training! Some things I love to do to practice that are researching those who came before me and the history behind different styles of dance, learning the foundations and elements of them, and ensuring that the correct dance information is being spread within the community. Today in the industry and classes, you see choreographers and dancers adding tiny bits of house, lite feet and its timing, hip-hop, jookin, and vogue vocabulary in their choreography without actually knowing what it is called or where it originated from. Many dancers are oblivious to how deep street-style cultures are. It is just a move to them when there is so much more intention behind it, and I want everyone to understand that and move in that.
Never giving up on myself is the one thing I am most proud of. There are always going to be trials and tribulations on a journey, and it is all about how you recover from them. I tend to think of the closed doors, no’s, and not yet’s as motivation that something greater is set for me, as long as I do the work that comes with it. My drive, hard work ethic, the literal and mental intention behind everything I do, and overall uniqueness distinguish me from others. My dreams will come true in due time. Until then, we still have work to do.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you.
Good luck plays a huge role in my life and business, and it only exists because I am manifesting, investing, and putting in the necessary work to achieve my dreams.
Of course, I run into bits of bad luck here and there, but I believe that everything happens for a reason. Instead of seeing mishaps as bad luck, I see them as protecting me from something happening and learning a great lesson from it. I am a glass-half-full type of woman because life is much more positive thinking that way.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chazzgotjuice/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChvmKPxtIHjdZfJRPEGYBFg
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/dancessht/
Image Credits
Josh Etchison @ufilmme
