TDF- EP.8~ AVA HOWE

This episode we are hitting the halfway point of this season with Ava Howe. Ava has had her fair share of obstacles to overcome but still leads with a positive mindset and a great work ethic that inspired me throughout our contract! She is a fitness enthusiast much like Denise Coleman and the two of them have even created H.I.T. classes on the ship together. Ava brought another fun dance to the series with an icon song and artist.  I'm sure you will enjoy the interview and the overall vibe that Ava brings so make sure you follow her @ava_howeee

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Host- Ty Nelson @tallglassofty

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Transcript

Welcome everybody back to another episode of TheDanceFloor. I'm your host Ty Nelson, and today as all days we have another awesome guest. I am joined by Ava Howe, who is a ship show dancer along with me in this cast on the Valiant Lady. A really vibrant human, a fun personality, all smiles. An athletic person as well, very much in the world of not necessarily bodybuilding, but health and it's been a very bleh bel bleh bleh… actually haven't had to do any redo’s in the intro, so I'm just gonna keep it as bad as it is right now. She has partnered with another person, Denise, who's a part of the series and they do workout on every second sea day. Yeah, so very busy body and just a dope human. Hello Ava. Hi. So would you let everybody else know who you really are? Yes! Other than that little thing I just said. I don't know, you made me sound pretty good, but yeah… She is. I'm Ava from small town Lebanon, Ohio, but currently located in Las Vegas, Nevada .I'm a dancer, have been a dancer my whole life. I went to school for dance. But more than that, I would just say I'm a performer and artist, doing all the things. As you mentioned, I'm also a coach, personal training. Oh, this is a good one. I don't think I've even asked him about this. What do you define as artistry? Oooh! I know, big question to get things going. That's that's brutal. Yeah. Artistry. I consider artistry any type of, I was gonna say any type of human expression, but really any type of expression in general of anything. 'Cause, you know, we look at artistry the way that we do it, in a sense of performance, the things that humans create and how they express their emotions, their feelings and ways of that. There's also artistry in nature and the way the waves move. The way the sky changes color throughout the day. So yeah, it's really just artistry is living. Wow, that was OK, Ava. Yeah. Dope. All right. What is your background, whether it be collegiate, whether it be, you know, where you trained growing up, dance wise. What is your full background? So yes, I grew up in the competition dance world, as many of us did. Loved it. No hate. But yeah, I did that all my life. I've been dancing since I was two or three years old, in the little combo classes, competed through high school, went to college. Four years BFA, Wright State. Let's go “Raider Up”. Went to school for dance, studied there more classical styles, very focused on technique, and then decided from there that I didn't want to go to the classical route, I just wanted to perform in any way that I could do that. So I went into the theme park world. There's a theme park back home, Kings Island, that I worked for for two years, a year and a half, something like that. And the whole time while doing that, I was auditioning for cruise ships because that was my big goal for many years. Then now we're here. Here we are. Kings Island. Is that like what, what property is that? It's like it's just its own thing or so it used to be Cedar Fair, but I believe now Cedar Fair and Six Flags have merged to where it's either Cedar Fair or Six Flags. I'm not positive. OK. What's like your favorite part of being at that place at Kings Island? What would what would be like the most rewarding part of that job? I really enjoy the audience interaction I have at that job. There's a lot of when I'm there. I'm typically in a stunt show, so I'm still a dancer, not a stunt artist, but I get to work with a lot of stunt people, which is very cool. Yeah, so the audience is always super engaged and super excited and usually screaming because people are jumping off stuff and flipping on bikes. And so as the dancers, we get to not only perform on stage, but we can actually go into the crowd and help get people riled up and also, you know, bring them into the whole experience. And one of the roles I played at the park was I was also a mime, which was hilarious. I got to go around and interacting with people in that way is so different. Not different cuz you know, dance. You don't speak mime, you don't speak but I don't know, there's just a whole different character. Oh yeah, It's more playful. You get a lot more leeway to mess with people. What about dance background? You said the competition dance scene led you into Kings Island, and then it led to basically this audition. Did you do anything collegiately? You said you throw up a sign or something. What was that? Yes. Raider up. I went to Wright State University. That's where I got my BFA in dance. Yeah, it was a really great program. Very, I think I said classical as I would describe it, very modern ballet, jazz, tap, which is not entirely the field that I ended up with as our specialties, but it gave me a really solid base and technique for any type of dance that I want to do in the future. So I'm very grateful for them. Is Tap still your favorite 'cause I know I've seen, I've seen Ava try Tap a couple times. And by try I mean kill it on stage when people aren't there. And I love when you Tap. So is that one of your favorite ones or is it just something else that you love? Tap is probably my favorite, but it's very much more.. It's a passion art form. OK, I wouldn't say; I love to perform it, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't say performing tap would be my favorite. Yeah. However, I it will always have a soft spot in my heart and it's a great way to, I don't know, get your aggression out stomping into the floor and creating rhythms. And I feel that it's kinda similar to a style called Krumping. That's why I really like Krump. Yeah, that's that same vibe. Like you get on a lot of kinetic energy if you will just getting to release. So it's sometimes all about release, you know what I mean? Get the feelings out, get the day you've had out. Very dope. What would you say is like.. The thing that inspires you in dance? It doesn't have to be people because we'll talk about mentors after. But what’s like the thing you find inspiring, obviously a little bit is your audience seeing them do their thing. And that seems to be a common answer, but is there anything else other than audience participation or that connection you feel with an audience when you perform that inspires you to do what you do? Separately, what inspired you to become like more into the health field as well? MMM yeah the range of dance that there is like you look at even just on the ship 'cause here we are yeah the range from say the Happenings Cast to what Ship Show does to what Untitled does there's such a variety of what you can do in dance. It is still art, it is still performance, it's still creation. Umm, and that's, I don't know, that alone is inspiring, you know, the cheesy “Anyone can dance.” It's it's really true. There's such a level to it, even in the professional world, it's so different, the amount of styles and skills you can have. And then, of course, I have to say the audience engagement, because. That's all right. Yeah, You know what? Yeah, there's… That’s a big part. It feels nice to make those connections and to make people feel what you're feeling, whether it's like happy or sad or whatnot. It's very rewarding, I think. Yeah. My favorite's when you when you look out somebody in the audience who's clearly watching you perform and they have the same face that you have. Yeah, I know for me, if I'm watching like an angsty contemporary routine, my face is I'm in it with them, like grimacing in the best way and I love when I see that back. What about for health and wellness? What really got you going with that? Yes, so health and wellness, it's been a long journey for me personally. Getting into, we know, the dancer world or any performance world, there's a lot of stigma about how you should look, how you should take care of yourself, trying to fit a perfect ideal. And while we are getting more away from that, it's still there, yeah. Yeah, of course it's not ever gonna go away. It's ingrained almost. Yeah. Yeah. So I had some a lot of personal struggles with that growing up being a more stocky girl. Umm, I've been this height since I was 12. Oh work. Yeah. OK, so I was used to being the biggest girl in the room in whatever way that meant. OK, so that was definitely a struggle for me for a very long time, and I tried a lot of very unhealthy ways of managing that all through high school as well as through college to the point where it was making performing hard sometimes. And I, you know, that kind of led me to find a switch in my mind of like, OK, if I really want to do this… Before anything else, I gotta take care of my body, right? Because that that's it. If your body's not doing well, you're not dancing well, that's right. So yeah, that really that led me to start the journey of just finding better ways to take care of myself, body, mind and soul. And then from there, I was like, wow, I actually really enjoy this. I started teaching. Classes just for my students, umm, teaching them about health and wellness and how they could implement that for themselves as their training. And it just became a passion from there. I got my certified personal trainer, CPT, and then, yeah, here we are. And now you're doing it literally on the ship, as we said with Denise every second sea day. Making up a class schedule, if you will. So you do like H.I.T. classes. How do you know what to put together? Like do you have a program that you just kind of follow or are you just on the fly being like, hey, let's do the push ups here, let's do the rows over here? How do you choreograph, if you will, to keep it in the vein of it? Creating a class, a H.I.T. class, Yeah. So I'll be honest, we've gotten a little looser with it, but in a good way. Because a big thing about it is, you know, we're on a ship. We want to make it fun and we want to make it accessible to everybody, whether you are in entertainment or not. Umm, So yeah, well, the way we've been doing it recently is Denise and I just meet up 20 minutes before class and we go through like, OK, we want to have a full, full body workout today. Yeah. So here are the muscles we wanna hit. We wanna hit arms, we wanna hit back, we wanna hit legs, we wanna hit glutes. What's an exercise for each of those? OK. And then we're good. Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Is there something that you've learned throughout your creative process or advice that you've been told that's really stuck with you that maybe you use as a daily mantra or things you tell yourself in the mirror? What advice would you like to give out and what are things that you think people should try to learn? Throughout their journey, whether it's in arts or just in life in general. So I actually have two pieces of advice that have stuck with me for a very long time. 1 is from my brother actually I have this written on my wall currently. He gave it to me in a letter. He said consistency is your superpower. Take the word motivation out of your vocabulary. And I know when you hear that, you're like, oh, but you know, you want to be motivated. Why wouldn't you want to? You gotta do it when you're not motivated. Yes, that is, that is the key is staying consistent and continuing to work and thrive and grow even when you don't want to do it right. If you only work when you're motivated, you're probably only working 50% of the time. That's true. That's true. I've been kind of feeling that with this process, to be honest, because dancing more. The IT won't make sense now, but the majority of this series was done in like 2 weeks and whenever I'm scheduling multiple people on on the same day like today, it was pretty easy with you and Sammy even though it was very you know umm, not draining, but what's the word when you like, do a lot and you're just like taxing. It was taxing on the body. I'm like, I gotta wake up tomorrow and do two more, you know, And it, it really does come down to you gotta be consistent. But also I, I wanna speak on the fact that it feels good when you do it, even if you didn't want to originally. Because sometimes when you get done, you're like, damn, I'm glad I did that, you know? Yeah. Consistency. OK. And what's your other thing? My other thing? This came from my best friend growing up. Her mom would always say it. Never think you're that important. Which is another one that sounds, it sounds really mean, especially when you think, oh, her mom said this to her. When she first said it to me, I was like, dude, that's brutal. But the way I take it or the way I've grown to take it is not to take things too personally. Yeah. And not even just that, but you are the center of your own world. You should be the center of your own world. But so is everybody else, Right? So, you know, you didn't get the job. That's not because you didn't deserve it. Somebody said something you didn't like. That's not because they wanted to make you mad. You know, like, not everything is necessarily directed at you, everybody's just living their life so learning how to I don't know, I could just thinking that helps me relax a little bit. Even just as simple as you're walking down the hallway and you're like oh, what if somebody notices that my hair is not looking good today or somebody looked at me funny. Never think you're that important. Yeah, everybody's in their own little world. Everybody's just doing the best they can. That's true. I mean, sometimes we really think that the things we're doing matter that much to other people, but. Uh oh, my God, it's literally escaping me. But I was talking about embarrassment, I think it was with Alphonse. And it's like embarrassment. Oh, he had said embarrassment is a choice. That's one of his things that he uses. And it's kind of in that same way where it's like.You get so caught up in worrying about what the other people are doing you won't really get to enjoy your thing. You know, the embarrassment will get to you. The thoughts of well, they they clearly. That's another thing I think is like assumptions for me is I had to get, I had to stop worrying about assumptions. Like I just assumed everybody. Yeah, that's a good. That's a good one. You're not that important. And again, it does sound harsh, but there's a lot of context there. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, absolutely. It's finding that line between not saying like things don't matter because of that, Clarifying: things do matter. You matter. But yeah, just don't don't always take it so seriously. Trust that you are on your own journey. I feel like that goes hand in hand with the choreography process because when you overthink what you're making, sometimes you don't even produce it. It's like being a perfectionist, you know? But like, when you just have fun and you go with it, you don't spend too much time on like, well, it's gotta look amazing. Like this one move is not the right. Yeah, people might miss that one move. That's right. You know, there's so many other amazing moves there that focus on those ones. Today we chose Purple Rain by the one and only Prince. Can you talk a little bit why you chose it and maybe even the section of the music that you chose? So yes, this song has been in my head for the past like 3 months on repeat. I don't know why I've just been playing over and over and over again. You know? We all know the song, especially the chorus. And then as I was stuck in my head, I started listening to it over and over again and I started paying more attention to the words. OK, this is Tell me SOMETHING. And there's a specific part in the song that says, honey, I know times are changing. It's time we reach out to something new. And for me personally, this has been a huge period of change in my life. Yeah. You know, it's my first time on a ship. It's my first time out of the country. It's my first time not really being at home. Like, even in college, I was still an hour from my hometown versus I'm literally away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Umm. So yeah, it was just a big I don't know, reminder of all the things I've done and how far I've come and how far I still have to go, but just to accept the change. There's another line in the. I'm trying to remember what it is. Oh, you want to be a leader, but you can't make up your mind. Yeah, well, why don't you close it and let me guide you to the purple rain. And I I, you know, I don't know exactly who's talking to about in that case. It’s just him saying it to someone, but it felt almost like a a spiritual moment of let life take you where it's going to take you. Let the change happen, let what's coming come. Don't necessarily try to lead it or control it or manipulate it. I don’t know that's been it's been very reflective for me these last couple months. So I I've tried to dance to it a couple times on my own and it's it's been fine. But I was like, you know, I feel like I should build with this. So thank you for I'm very grateful. It was so much fun. Watching the video, obviously I'm a little critical of like my decisions, like just being loose with my arms, but the choreography in general is so much fun. Like I had such a good time creating with you and again, natural, like, you know, just letting it flow, letting whatever the choreo. Be just be. We've had a little partner work into it, which is fun, but this one was was like a good like almost like what you're saying, what the audience, how you make those faces. You're kind of we're kind of doing that with their bodies and the music. We're like “MMM” and in the very, very end we are letting the rain hit us. So I had a lot of fun. So thank you for sharing that song, especially such an iconic song. I had a really good time. Me too. Yeah. It was dope. I didn't feel like I had to perform. Yeah, it was one of those that just kind of it just kind of happened. Sometimes and sometimes you got it. We kind of talked about this earlier, but you got to do projects that are that are not about perfection, they're not about getting paid, they're not about stress. Because I feel like it's the dancers the hobby becomes the job and you forget that like it's all about having fun, you know, and that's been a really refreshing part of this series and I hope any of you out there take away to just try and have fun, especially when you see these different styles and different approaches to dance. It's not all the same and there's different levels to it. And what I will say has been a through line for the entire process is how happy everybody has been when they get done. But just get out there and have fun. Get out there and play. You know, we didn't choose dance for the money. We chose it because we love to do it. That's true. That is true. Yeah. We definitely cannot mind for the money, that's for sure. Yeah, it was nice to.. Well, it's fine. That's fine. But yeah, it's just nice to reconnect with the the passion of it. Yeah, remembering that, yes, it's a job, but it's a really freaking awesome job. Agreed. Absolutely. First high five of the podcast, just so everybody knows, I think, I really hope I'm not wrong on that. What is something.That you're looking forward to most after this contract's done, Are you gonna do a little bit more of the same or you gonna try something new? So a little bit of both. OK, immediately after I am going back to Kings Island, right? OK, so contract there. I will most likely be the mime again 'cause they, they like to put me in that role, but we'll see. That will be the same but different. I've gotten really into the circus art forms or something a little different? I won't say all circus, but pole dancing. So yeah, you've been working on pole. It’s been really good. I've seen the progression on your stories. You saw where it started. It was rough at first. I couldn’t even hold on to the pole you know. As things are when you first start. Oh, yeah. So I'm very excited to explore that and explore like more aerial arts. I wanna, I wanna dance in the sky, baby. Yeah. So yeah, I'm excited to keep training in that way. And then always training dance. There's always something new to learn, something new to explore. But yeah. And then overall excited to come back. Do it all again, whether it's the show or another show or extending. Is The Happenings something you would look into. I know when we first ever met, we talked a little bit about like the Balancer, which would be a great role for you. I don't know what the stipulations are of whether it's a pay cut or whether it's a pay increase or whatever it is, but would that be something that you would be considering regardless? Is something I've been talking to a lot of The Happenings members about actually. OK. And now I'm on record. Watch out. But yeah, that is from the beginning. I don't know, I just, I really loved the energy that they brought and it seems so much fun. And like I mentioned, I love audience engagement, being able to interact with.. Umm, you know, in this case the sailors or anybody to where I thought it would be not only a fun experience, but something to kind of push my boundaries a little bit 'cause I've never done hosting or been on a mic tour. Oh, you do so good, truly. Not even just like as to hype you up. You would do so good with it. I would appreciate to watch you do your thing, girl. Yeah, that'll be fun. That's another. It's another one that I just like. I don't know, I want, I want another. I love to challenge myself. That would be a new challenge, and it's kind of a different realm than what I'm currently doing. Umm, so yeah, we'll see. Balancer was definitely contender 'cause obviously the fitness, but even just any of the positions that that dance 'cause you know, I still I never wanna lose that role. OK yeah, Influencer role feels more ideal just for the dance portion. That's fair yeah, cuz it's dance heavy only in those roles. And Balancer you maybe do like Latin class or maybe Zumba. You know, so that's fair enough. Still still gotta keep that part of my life, but… Considering branching out. OK, in the same vein almost to wrap things up, where can people expect you next? We talked about Kings Island. Where can people find you? What's your Instagram? What's like? Do you do personal training online that people can book you with? That's a great plug if you wanna tell… Nice to meet you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. So my Instagram is Ava, Ava under score Howeee HOW 3 ES Yeah, I don't know why That's all right. Stuck. It  my nickname in school But it is Ava Howe Right. It is Ava (How)e I was feeling like a ******* for a second there. I was like, I thought it was how I got called Howie a lot in school. OK. Because there's an E at the end. Yeah. So we roll with it. But I do, yeah. Personal training. So if anybody needs some personal training specifically for the dancers. I love to share my tips and tricks in that. Is that was that what the question? Yeah, Sorry. Yeah, You do good. It's just like a moment where you can plug yourself. People out there. Once again, thank you for joining in. My name is Ty Nelson, your host. Want to give another huge thank you to Ava Howe.E for joining in another fun dance with Purple Rain, another great interview. Hopefully when you see this you'll enjoy the song, or maybe you'll find some inspiration in today's episode. No matter what the goal is, we hope that we will one day see you out on.TheDaNceFloor. Bye. Bye, everybody. Thank you. Thanks again. Boo. Boo. Yeah. Oh official.