My name is Latoya Rafaëla, I'm an actress and singer who started her career as a dancer in The Netherlands.
At the early age of 4, I started my first ballet training and by the time I was 9 years old, I got in to the National Ballet Academy in Amsterdam.
During my training I got to perform on stage with the Royal National ballet, in pieces like, "The Swanlake", "The Nuthcracker", "Romeo and Julliet" and "A Midsummer night dream".
Besides my passion for dance, I also loved to act and to sing and therefor wanted to try to combine my passions, in Musical theater.
At 17, I auditioned for the education "Musical Theater" at the School of Arts in Amsterdam and while training there I managed to get my first professional job: Swing in the original cast of the production of the Lion King in the Netherlands.
After two years performing in this amazing show, I moved to Cologne, Germany. There I got the be a Teen Queen as well as a cover for the leading part "Scaramouche" in the QUEEN Hit-Musical, "We Will Rock You".
During my time in Germany I got to grow as a performer, a singer and actress, and another two years later, I packed my bags to move to London, where I got a chance to perform on the West-End in the musical production "WICKED".
While I lived and worked in London, I realized I wanted to pursue another dream of mine: acting for film and TV.
After some acting classes in London, I received a scholarship from the "Prins Bernhard Cultuur Fonds" and moved to Los Angeles, USA to study acting for 6 months. A complete different world than the world of theater, but I kinda enjoyed it.
Back in Europe, after my L.A. adventure, I got a chance to get back in to the theater and cover the role of Scaramouche in We Will Rock You in my own language. Something I really wanted to do. And so I played my role as a Teen Queen and covered the lead for another 1,5 years in The Netherlands and Belgium.
After Rock You, something completely different crossed my path. I got the opportunity to sing on board of a cruiseship and travel around the world. I moved to Berlin for rehearsals and after a few months I moved to the ship. For almost 6 months I got to see the most amazing places in Europe, South-America, the caribbean, and the USA ,while I got to do something that I love: to sing and perform on stage.
This was not the only ship I got to perform on. When I returned from the ship I started to freelance as a singer in several bands.
And then, a year later, I moved to Olso to rehearse for another cruiseline. I got a job as a singer aboard of a ship for a full year contract, before I was asked to come back to do another contract with We Will Rock You in Germany. I rehearsed in Vienna and performed in Rock You once again in both Hamburg and Cologne.
After so many long contracts in foreign countries, travelling the world, doing 8 shows a week and hardly having a social life, it was time for me to do things differently. I wanted to work on my craft and enjoy my passion for acting, singing and dancing on my own terms. Freelancing seemed to be the answer, which also gave me the opportunity to focus more on acting once again.
I decided to get back in to acting classes and study the Chubbuck Technique, that I first got in to contact with when I moved to L.A.
In the past years I managed to play some lovely and challenging roles in several short-films. Some of them even won awards at film festivals, others will even come out in cinema's all over the world!
Check out what films and projects I've been part of recently and are coming up soon.
Watch the video's and photo's or just have look at my website and let me know what you think.
Latoya Rafaëla