Belen Leroux: ‘Dancing has taught me a lot about life’

Two Fridays ago, the MOA Arena was filled with concertgoers enjoying the performances of Dua Lipa. They sang and danced with the English  artist. On stage, Dua was joined by her principal dancers, back-up singers and her band. Frenetic was the mood. The audience was having such a great time, almost in trance. How much more if they learned that one of Dua’s principal dancers is a Filipino-Spanish lady named Belen Leroux?

“I’m always proud to perform with Dua. The feeling onstage with her and the team is so much fun, free, an indescribable, incomparable high. It goes further than our passion. Her music has very important, empowering messages, especially for young girls. It is an honor to represent and interpret that; to express and share love with the world and hopefully be a strong inspiration,” Belen, 22, shares when Allure sits down with her a few hours before Dua Lipa’s concert. She’s been touring the world with Dua for a year now. “I must have done more than 50 performances with her,” she says.

Belen, or Belenita to her family, is a name to reckon with in the London dance community. She was born and raised in Sydney, moved to Valencia with her Spanish mother at nine and at 19, she started to call London her home. Because in London, she has set her spirit free to dance, especially when she took up her BA Honors degree in Dance at the Kingston University.

“My artistic side, I would say, I got it from my dad’s side. My dad, Alan Leroux, has always loved singing and playing the guitar and even dancing but not very well. I’m kidding. And he’s a personal trainor for martial arts,” Belen says.

(Alan is the youngest of eight children of Elizabeth Reyes Leroux and former ombudsman Aniano Desierto. When the couple divorced, some of the children adopted their mother’s last name. The former ombudsman drops at the interview and embraces his apo who he last saw 11 years ago. “I’m very proud of you,” he tells Belen, who melts in his arms.)

“I share the same name with my mom. Her name is Maria Belen Fito. I’ve learned a lot about love and strength from her and my dad. My mom is my biggest inspiration. She is the strongest woman I know and is capable of unconditional love. I have learned the most from her and the meaning of beauty,” Belen adds.

Belen says her family is a great inspiration for her to perfect her craft. When she dances during concerts, she allows her mind to transport her to a distant past, say to her childhood spent in Australia where she danced non-stop with her relatives during Christmas parties or played the piano with her grandmother Elizabeth as her teacher. Imagination is important when she performs so she brings her emotions to the fore. She thinks of the future, like what the future will bring to her younger brother Jordi Alan Leroux, who is also in London taking up a course in International Business. 

When her body grooves to a hip hop or RnB beat, she actually performs poetry in the alacrity of her movements. The spunk and grace she shows on stage is actually the expression of her soul; it is the language of her spirit that is free, yearning, filled with dreams. Dancing, Belen says, is a way of seeing life. It has taught her a lot about herself, about life, about her emotions, about the reach of her imagination.

“Dancing also taught me a lot about connecting with different people from everywhere around the world. It’s been sort of a pathway for me to gain the confidence and knowledge about myself to just be true to who I am and be able to express that as well. It’s also really important in any kind of art to be aware that anything you do is political. So it’s a tool to just share whatever is going on in your life and wherever you’re from — in your country, in your society, and to be able to communicate that with anyone. Maybe open people’s perspectives on different things and ways of thinking,” says Belen, who was recently featured in Vogue Spain.

She’s not confined to hip hop and RnB moves. In fact, her style, she says, is a fluid mix of different styles. “When I dance, I don’t really put a name or a label on it. It’s a fusion of everything that I’ve learned and I just move freely when I feel like. That’s what attracted me the most. That’s the kind of music that I like for whatever reason and I eventually did ballet, contemporary dance,” she says, adding that she also wants to learn flamenco.

To dance is to give your all — body, heart, mind and soul. Therefore it’s hard work. Does it also come with a good remuneration package?

“Yes,” she says, breaking into  crusty laughter. “Dancing is very hard work. It takes a lot of training and sweat to be able to do it.” When Belen laughs, her eyes laugh, too, even if they are closed. Passion is palpable in the way she weaves her words. Hers is a lilting, sing-song voice. Well, she put up an all-girls band when she was in high school in Valencia.

“For artists that aren’t very known, they (producers) won’t offer to pay you at all but it’s within your decision to take those offers or not. Or sometimes, they say for exposure, which I don’t really believe in. It’s harder when you’re starting off. I’ve definitely done some things that weren’t paid the amount that they should have been. I wouldn’t do anything unless it was something I truly believed in and unless I understood that there was some kind of a situation on the budget and I really wanted to be part of; unless it was a kind of exceptional situation, I wouldn’t do it. Unless I’m paid what I’m supposed to be paid.

“It’s not only about me, it’s about the whole community. If I accept to be paid less than what I’m supposed to, then I’m bringing down the whole community of dancers,” says Belen, who will have a dance appearance in the new Aladdin movie that stars, among others, Will Smith.

Her ambition to dance is the seed that propels Belen to kick her feet and hit the dance floor. Her passion nourishes her dreams so she has become the highly skillful dancer that she is now. Her heart marries her mind on the performing stage when she moves. A dancing dynamo is created in her.

“I think, more than anything, you just have to really love what you do and have a strong motivation behind what you do and really know who you are within. You’re going to need inspiration in order to express  yourself creatively or artistically,  but you also have to have a balance as it is your job,” she concludes.