Michelle Vallejos teaches sexy dancing. Photo: Michelle Vallejos.
A form of creative expression with a sensual aura was introduced to Esperance last Wednesday as Peruvian Michelle Vallejos guided her first “sexy dance” class.
Vallejos’ teachings combine street dance, hip hop, breaking and jazz dance with a personal touch.
“Sexy dance is not like a style of dance, it’s more like the way you dance,” Vallejos said.
“It doesn’t have to be something big – it’s just the small details that make it sexy or some little eye movements that make it sexy and playful.”
Vallejos said everybody was sensual in unique ways and she said her dance class was a way for people to explore their sexy “superpower”.
“We talk in class about how we have our own sensuality – I feel like society sometimes tell us what’s sexy and not sexy so the idea is we can deconstruct that and build it again,” she said.
“My favourite part is in general I work on myself and feel really good with my body and how I look which is important from inside to outside.
“I think this is what I love about sexy dance – I get into a performance and I’m just like a character and I’m ‘other me’ and I think that practice of being ‘other me’ helps me when I’m myself – it makes me feel so confident about myself and empowering myself.”
Vallejos studied theatre at university in Lima and said she had five years of experience in dance too.
She said she had been running Latin dance classes in Esperance since 2022 and now she was living here long term, she wanted to get more involved in the artistic space.
Vallejos’ sexy dancing is a 1.5-hour affair for adults which she said involved more than just choreography.
“I pose a question at the beginning, like ‘which energy are we bringing’ or ‘what do we want to work on?’,” she said.
“We connect with our bodies and connect with each other and be comfortable with just being present – I tell them to be present and forget about what happened before and forget what is going to come after.
“We do some exercises and catwalks or just poses or little exercises to work on attitude because that is the idea here.
“We do the basic steps and we do a choreography with that but that’s the last 30 minutes.”
She said although sexy dancing required some potentially challenging techniques, her first class was a success.
The class attracted both newbies and seasoned female dancers, though she said she welcomed men to join too.
“For anything you do in your life you go and try it and if you don’t like it, well at least you tried it,” she said.
Vallejos’ next sexy dance class will be held on Wednesday July 10 at the CWA Hall on Dempster Street.
She said her four-week Latin dance workshops would begin again on Monday 7 July.
