{"id":62756,"date":"2024-03-12T10:34:21","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T10:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outthere.travel\/?p=62756"},"modified":"2025-09-04T15:21:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T14:21:05","slug":"miguel-de-sousa-paris-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outthere.travel\/miguel-de-sousa-paris-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Miguel De Sousa
Paris, France"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A dancer, model and culture aficionado, Miguel De Sousa stems from Salvador, Brazil, but he’s made his home in Paris. For OutThere, he retraces the steps that took him to the French capital \u2013 and shares why he loves it so much.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I love Paris because it\u2019s so plural. There\u2019s so much different stuff going on here. And it\u2019s a big city, with a big population, in a small space. That means we\u2019re all on top of each other, confronted with each others\u2019 realities. There isn\u2019t a lot of space for us to be isolated, and so we learn to coexist. Its scale also means you can get between different places quickly, and do a lot of different things in one day. It\u2019s very walkable. I like its rhythm, its fast pace calms me because it\u2019s the same rhythm I have inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within dance, I\u2019ve seen Paris\u2019 pluralism bring new diversity and open up new possibilities. You used to hear people say ballet is the base for everything, that without ballet, you can\u2019t be a dancer. Things are a lot more open now, so many styles coexist and influence each other and you see artists from very different backgrounds working together and creating new fusions all the time. Voguing, too, has become massive here in recent years and played a part. I think it\u2019s very enriching. There\u2019s an amazing cultural centre in the 19th called CENTQUATRE-PARIS. They have exhibitions there, theatre, concerts, but what I like most is that lots of people go there to practise dance, or take classes, in this huge, open warehouse-like space, and they can all kind of feed off what they see each other doing. It\u2019s like a physical manifestation of how plural the performing arts world is here now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I first came to Paris on a student exchange, as part of my university course, when I was studying dance in Salvador, Brazil<\/strong><\/a>, where I\u2019m from. When I finished my course, I auditioned for another here, with the hip hop dance school Juste Debout, and came back. That was in 2012, and I\u2019ve lived here ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"The<\/figure>
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This story first appeared in The Paris is Turning Issue<\/strong><\/a>, available in print and digital.

Subscribe today<\/a><\/strong> or purchase a back copy via our online shop<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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I hadn\u2019t had any training until I was 18, I\u2019d just learned choreography I saw on TV and sometimes practised with friends, I loved how free it made me feel. So when I came to Paris, I was hungry to learn, and took every class I could. I trained mainly in hip-hop, contemporary and Afro-Brazilian, and those are mostly what I do still, but I also took ballet, jazz, and house dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I\u2019ve found Paris has allowed me to do so many different things. I\u2019ve spent years with a contemporary dance company, danced in music videos, in TV ads, done shows for kids, fashion work, and been in cabaret. I\u2019ve also choreographed, and last year I made my own short film, N\u00f3s<\/em>, which I\u2019m currently working on getting into festivals. I danced too in Jacques Audiard\u2019s movie Emilia Perez<\/em>, which stars Zoe Salda\u00f1a and Selena Gomez and won the Jury Prize at Cannes, and was one of 153 dancers in a huge collaborative piece, Chiroptera<\/em>, with the Op\u00e9ra National de Paris on a monumental vertical frame in front of the Palais Garnier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a beautiful city, too, of course. I love walking the Coul\u00e9e verte Ren\u00e9-Dumont, a 4.5km raised linear park from the Op\u00e9ra Bastille to the Biblioth\u00e8que Nationale de France in the 12th. It\u2019s a special way to see the city, even in winter. I also love the naturist zone they opened a few years ago in the Bois de Vincennes. For six months of the year, you can now go and hang out naked, legally, in a Paris park, in a clearing in the woods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I like about the queer scene here is that there\u2019s room for everyone, for all the tribes, and the tribes even connect, sometimes. Venues that identify as queer or lesbian tend to be more intersectional and politicised than places which call themselves \u2018gay\u2019 \u2013 the bar La Mutinerie near Centre Pompidou is a good example. There\u2019s racism and homophobia here, of course, as in any city, but the minority communities are big and visible enough that you can thrive within them. I live in Goutte d\u2019Or in the 18th, which is considered a sketchy area, but I\u2019ve never been called out in my neighbourhood, even if I go out in a crop top or a dress. I actually love the area, it hasn\u2019t been gentrified \u2013 yet \u2013 and again, is very plural in terms of communities, with lots of North African, West African and Indian people, and amazing markets and locals\u2019 restaurants \u2013 a favourite is Les Trois Fr\u00e8res, which does an amazing couscous. Plus, it\u2019s hilly, and that\u2019s great for my quads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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www.migueldesousa.net<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photography by Pierre Barbrel. As told to Rupert Mellor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A dancer, model and culture aficionado, Miguel De Sousa stems from Salvador, Brazil, but he’s made his home in Paris. For OutThere, he retraces the steps that took him to the French capital \u2013 and shares why he loves it so much. I love Paris because it\u2019s so plural. There\u2019s so much different stuff going on here. And it\u2019s a big city, with a big population, in a small space. That means we\u2019re all on top of each other, confronted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":62766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3146,4,2674,3173],"tags":[1762],"class_list":["post-62756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tp-france","category-topography","category-voices","category-voices-homepage","tag-paris"],"yoast_head":"\nMiguel De Sousa shares why he loves his chosen home of Paris - OutThere magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dancer Miguel De Sousa has made his home in Paris. 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