Pandora Marie | |
---|---|
Born | Marie Faye Medina July 25, 1981 Santa Ana, California, U.S. [1] |
Occupation(s) | Dancer, choreographer |
Years active | 2002–present |
Awards | Performing Arts "Achievement Award" - Lowak Sho'li (Carry The Fire) First American Humanities Forum (Chickasaw Nation) Most Outstanding Female Popper - LA Hip-Hop Dance Awards Radiotron 2003 (LA) Radiotron 2004 (LA) B. Supreme London (UK) Freestyle Style Session (LA) How The West Was Won (LA) Take It Personal (AZ) Floor Wars (LA) Cloud Cypher (Canada) |
Website | Little Box Of Hope Pandora Marie |
Marie "Pandora" Medina, aka Pandora or Pandora Marie (born Marie Faye Medina, July 25, 1981), is an American dancer and choreographer who specializes in the "tutting" and "popping" dance styles. She is a member of the Style Elements Crew, The LXD and Venus Fly. Pandora's career has spanned over fifteen years, primarily as part of the popping dance funk culture. [2]
Pandora Marie has worked with musicians such as Common and Pharrell, Justin Bieber, Trey Songs, Flo-Rida, Sean Kingston, David Guetta, Steve Aoki, Skrillex, LMFAO and Gina Rodriguez. Pandora is best known for the Step Up 3D "tutting" scene, a standing ovation on So You Think You Can Dance , a Microsoft Surface commercial, her lead role as Autumn in Jon M Chu's The LXD (The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers), and her supporting role as Karla in the Youssef Delara and Michael D. Olmos movie Filly Brown . The Danish magazine Gaffa described Pandora as "one of the best Electric Boogie dancers in the world" after her performance in the Danish show "Menneske Robotten" ("The Human Robot"). [3] [4] The reviewer went on to state that Pandora Marie, and her fellow dancer Koichiro Mori made the dance look easy despite being technically difficult. [3]
In recent years Pandora Marie has expanded her work into the theater and other creative directions. She has performed in theatrical pieces for Little Box Of Hope and DS2DIO, and has worked with Cirque du Soleil and Cirque Éloize. Pandora has also held the principal role of Clara in The Nutcracker in Tivoli, Copenhagen, Denmark and performed many principal roles in award-winning theatrical productions throughout the US, Scandinavia, and Europe.
Pandora is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Little Box Of Hope (a production company / creative collective) alongside her fiancé. [5] She also has worked with G Koop and Darrick Quali-D Fields and has original songs, poetry and music sold on iTunes, Spotify and other music platforms.
Pandora is both Native American and Mexican American. Her native tribes are Chickasaw and Choctaw and she is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation.
In 2011 Pandora Marie participated in the "Rise Up and Dance" project, teaching kids to dance as a way to give them a purpose in life. She said, "Dancing is what saved me from going down the wrong path. I want to help and inspire kids just like I was inspired by the dancers in my neighborhood". [1]
In 2009 Pandora was contacted on YouTube and personally cast by Now You See Me 2 director Jon M. Chu in the role of Autumn in the popular online dance series The LXD: Legion of Extraordinary Dancers. [6] This relationship led to many other collaborations such as Disney's Step Up film series, [7] NASA's Earth Chorus, The Conan O'Brien Show , BMW Mini Cooper, Google Zietgeist Conference and more. Her dancing in Step Up 3D was described by one reviewer by stating that Pandora Marie "will have you so hypnotized with her finger tuts... it’ll be nothing short of bewitching". [8]
Pandora was presented with an award for "Most Outstanding Female Popper" and has held titles in dance competitions all around the world ("battles") Radiotron, UK B. Supreme, [9] Freestyle Style Session, How The West Was Won, Take It Personal, Floor Wars, and more. She is considered to be an influential figure in street-dance culture. [10] [11]
Hip hop dance is a range of street dance styles primarily performed to hip hop music or that have evolved as part of hip hop culture. It is influenced by a wide range of styles that were created in the 1970s and made popular by dance crews in the United States. The television show Soul Train and the 1980s films Breakin', Beat Street, and Wild Style showcased these crews and dance styles in their early stages; therefore, giving hip-hop dance mainstream exposure.
Cirque Éloize is a contemporary circus company founded in Montreal in 1993 by Jeannot Painchaud, Daniel Cyr, Claudette Morin, and Julie Hamelin. Its productions combine circus arts with music, dance, technology, and theatre. "Éloize" means "heat lightning" in Acadian French, a dialect spoken in Acadia and the Magdalen Islands, where the group's founders are from.
Adam Manucharian, known professionally as Adam G. Sevani, is an American actor and dancer, known for playing Robert Alexander III / Moose in the Step Up film series.
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Jonathan Murray Chu is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known as the director of 2018's Crazy Rich Asians, the first film by a major Hollywood studio to feature a majority cast of Asian descent in a modern setting since The Joy Luck Club in 1993.
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Harry Shum Jr. is an American actor. Shum has played Mike Chang on the Fox television series Glee (2009–2015), Magnus Bane on the Freeform television series Shadowhunters (2016–2019), and Benson Kwan on the ABC television series Grey's Anatomy (2022–present). He was nominated for six Screen Actors Guild Awards for best ensemble performance in Crazy Rich Asians, Glee and Everything Everywhere All at Once, winning for the latter two. Shum won the award for The Male TV Star of 2018 in the E! People's Choice Awards for Shadowhunters.
The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, commonly called The LXD, is a 2010–2011 American web series that premiered on Hulu. The series follows two groups of rival dancers: The Alliance of the Dark, who are the villains, and The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, the heroes, who discover they have superpowers referred to as "the Ra" through their dance abilities. The entire story takes place over hundreds of years, beginning in the 1920s, up to the year 3000.
"Somebody to Love" is a song by Canadian singer Justin Bieber featuring American singer Usher. The song served as the second single from Bieber's first studio album My World 2.0. It was written by Heather Bright and The Stereotypes, and produced by the latter. The song was originally recorded as a demo by Usher, who was Bieber's mentor, for his sixth studio album, Raymond v. Raymond (2010). After things went stale with Usher's label, The Stereotypes were encouraged to give the song to Bieber, who recorded it, with Usher performing background vocals. The song is an upbeat pop song, which also derives from R&B genre, while making use of Eurodisco influences. It impacted US mainstream and rhythmic radio on April 20, 2010. The remix of the song featuring Usher was featured on Bieber's first compilation album My Worlds: The Collection and his second remix album Never Say Never: The Remixes.
Galen Hooks is an American dancer and choreographer.
Justin Bieber: Never Say Never is a 2011 American 3-D concert film centering on Canadian singer Justin Bieber. It received generally positive reviews from critics. It was released in the United States on February 11, 2011 and grossed $99 million worldwide, against a $13 million production budget. A sequel was released on December 25, 2013, entitled Justin Bieber's Believe.
"Beauty and a Beat" is a song by Canadian singer Justin Bieber from his third studio album Believe (2012). It features rapper Nicki Minaj, who co-wrote it with Savan Kotecha, Max Martin and Zedd. It was also produced by the latter two with a heavy drum machine and "rushing" synthesizers. Lyrically, it speaks about Bieber wanting to take his love interest to a club, where they can "party like it's 3012". It is the only song from Believe that Bieber did not co-write. The song became the third official single from the album.
Daniel "Cloud" Campos is an American dancer, director, and choreographer raised in San Diego, California, and Orlando, Florida.
Karen Marie Aagaard Ørsted Andersen, known professionally as MØ, is a Danish singer and songwriter. She began her career in the mid-2000s as a member of the punk duo MOR and releasing a handful of side projects. After MOR disbanded in 2012, MØ signed a recording contract with Sony Music Entertainment, releasing her debut extended play, Bikini Daze (2013), and her debut studio album, No Mythologies to Follow (2014).
Justin Bieber's Believe is a 2013 American concert film and the sequel to Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011), both centering on Canadian singer Justin Bieber. It was distributed through Open Road Films in the United States and Canada, premiering on December 18, 2013 and being officially released to theaters on December 25, 2013. The film received generally negative reviews from critics and grossed $32.2 million at the worldwide box office.
Finger-tutting is a type of dance that involves intricate movements of the fingers. The word "tutting" is a street dance style based on angular movements which are supposed to stylize the poses seen on reliefs in the art of ancient Egypt, and refers to "King Tut".
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