Royalenova is excited to announce the addition of vogue dancer Javier Ninja on Tuesday, August 18th, to our Summer Session II Week Long Intensive. Classes are open to both Royalenova students and the public. Class for dancers 12 and under is from 5-6:30 pm, and class for dancers 13 and over is from 6:30-8 pm. Classes cost $30 each, or register for the entire week and experience the full lineup of artists that we have in store for only $350! Don’t miss out on this amazing lineup! Contact the studio at 631-878-7500 or info@royalenova.com to register.
Vogue dancers have been flirting with the concert dance world for years—Doug Elkins’ Scott, Queen of Marys, starring “grandfather of vogue” Willi Ninja, premiered in 1994—but few voguers are as at home in so many different venues as Javier Ninja. The decorated new-way-vogue dancer, who has been named House Dance International Champion of the Year multiple times, mixes seemingly boneless hyperextensions with serpentine hand and arm gestures. It’s an unearthly combination, made all the more enticing by Javier’s deliciously tongue-in-cheek theatricality. And somehow it looks right in every context—whether he’s performing at street dance competition Juste Debout, dancing with Madonna at the 2012 Super Bowl, or reprising his late mentor Willi’s role in last year’s revival of Scott, Queen of Marys.
Javier (born Javier Madrid) trained in ballet, contemporary, and modern for several years before discovering voguing at age 15, “in a club I definitely was not supposed to be in,” he says. “I’d always been fascinated by rhythmic gymnastics, and I loved the idea of being grotesque when I danced—enough to make people squirm—but also very precise.” The club scene introduced him to Willi Ninja, who brought Javier into the voguing House of Ninja and was a close friend until his death in 2006. “To keep Willi’s legacy going,” Javier says, “is one of my greatest goals.”
