Dance
Joséphine Remy
Joséphine Remy (born 1989 in Vevey, raised in Blonay) is a Vaud dancer and choreographer, a leading figure of “heels” dance, who has danced for some of the biggest names in music: from Chris Brown, French Montana, 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg to the reggaeton stars Bad Bunny, Myke Towers and Jhay Cortez, as well as Shania Twain. Before conquering New York and then Los Angeles, she had founded her hip-hop school K-Unik in Vevey at the age of 17. “I have achieved all my dreams, even the wildest ones,” she says.
Joséphine Remy, from Vevey to the biggest stages
From Blonay to hip-hop battles
A child of Blonay, Joséphine Remy has danced all her life: first lessons at four, love at first sight for hip-hop at thirteen. After the D.Master street-dance training in Lausanne, at just 17 she opened her school K-Unik in Vevey with her partner Mamadou Kalombo (Mams).
In a portrait published by Le Temps in 2023, she smiles about it: “I did everything backwards: normally you train and then you open a school. To begin with, we just wanted to make a bit of pocket money, but after a month we already had 200 people in our classes.” The venture lasted seven years and kept off the streets young people often from working-class families.
New York, a wake-up call
An apprenticeship at Credit Suisse allowed her, by a happy coincidence, to fund her dream: in 2014 she joined the prestigious Peridance school in New York. The shock was brutal, she told Le Temps: “I think that for the first three months in New York, I didn’t stop crying. It was a real slap in the face, because in Switzerland I was one of the best, and arriving there I realised that wasn’t the case at all.”
She swapped trainers for heels and took up ballet, singing and acting: “My first casting was for Madonna, my second for Beyoncé, and I stood out in that room full of sexy, self-assured women.”
Dancing for the stars
From 2017 everything speeds up: a Chris Brown video, then the MetLife Stadium before 80,000 people with French Montana and Faith Evans. In 2018 she settled in Los Angeles and signed with the big agency Go 2 Talent, which opened the biggest auditions to her.
She went on to dance for 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, the reggaeton stars Bad Bunny, Myke Towers and Jhay Cortez, the Colombian J Balvin at the 2022 Grammy Awards, and Shania Twain at the 2022 People’s Choice Awards. “I had the chance to take part in concerts in all the biggest arenas on the East Coast, I toured all over the United States and even Latin America,” she told 24 heures in 2022.
Heels, a therapy through dance
Joséphine Remy is keen to pass on her journey. Back in Switzerland regularly, she created Talents Factory to professionalise the country’s dancers. “Heels dance is a therapy through dance,” she sums up in Le Temps.
It is also a way of giving women back their confidence. “Sometimes curvier women hold back because of what others think. As if heels and that femininity were reserved for tall, slim girls. I want to break that,” she told 24 heures. Because, deep down, it all comes from the same impulse: “Dance lets me escape as if there were nothing left around me, and feel absolute happiness. It’s a complete cliché, but dance really is my whole life.”