EXCLUDED GALA – check out this who was so moved by Celine Dion at Pepe Munoz – Gala

Dancer

This is the story of a real lightning strike, which occurred shortly before the concert of the French singer, last summer. Pepe Munoz has hung up his slippers to dance for a career in illustration. But his complicity with Celine Dion is intact. As he prepares to exhibit at the Galerie Sébastien Adrien, in Paris, the ex-dancer tells us about his journey that has touched the quebec diva…

Since last June, in the image of their body which intertwined on stage on the song, The Ballet, his name became inseparable from that of Celine Dion. A Spanish dancer, tested, musicals and drawing in his spare time : the information relating to them have always been kept to a minimum, as if his path was that the fantasies inspired by his close relationship with the quebec diva. Has 32 years, is about to exhibit his illustrations at the Galerie Sébastien Adrien, in Paris (22 January to 3 march), Pepe Munoz knows all he needs to Céline. But it’s impossible to understand their complicity, how these two took a great affection the one for the other, without mentioning a few of their similarities.

Pepe was born under the sun, ” in the village of Sant Joan in Alicante, on the East coast of Spain “, before they grow to Malaga. Nothing to do with the Quebec native Celine. But as the singer, who comes from a family of fourteen children, he confesses his devotion to his family. “My father is a business man, but he also draws, with a lot of talent. My mother, she is simply the best of moms ! I have a sister, who is the coordinator in a school of performing arts in Malaga, and a brother, veritable virtuoso of the computer. I don’t know if I grew up in a ” family of art “, but there were books everywhere, enough to feed the inspiration “, he says.

“Illustration has gradually imposed “, he says. Grandson of a professional illustrator, he mentions ” an atavism “. His main inspiration remains one of his grandmothers, ” always impeccably coiffed, with her pearl necklace and her sunglasses, at any time of the day. “But his first passion was dance :” Little, I was obsessed with musicals. I visionnais loop, Cabaret, Dance in the rain, A Chorus Line…”

Like Celine Dion before she is discovered and shaped in star of the international variety by René Angélil, Pepe grabbed his dream. “I’ve not really been supported in my early days. My parents were especially afraid for me, ” he says. When they realized that I could live of the dance, that this job made me happy and that I was a hygiene of life, everything is arranged. “Before you recall the meeting that tipped his existence :” I was spotted in the street by a casting director at the age of nineteen years. I auditioned for the musical Cats and I have been selected. I was the youngest of the group, everyone took me under his wing, I was able to learn peacefully. “Despite the pinching in the heart. “Live away from his family is not always easy. My brother was thirteen years old, when I left our house, ” recalls Pepe. At the time, we could not communicate, as is done now with FaceTime. I sometimes have the impression of having failed in his teens… Behind all artistic production, there is a lot of work and sacrifice. “

His meeting with Céline, in the spring of 2017, is, if not a reward, another quirk of fate : “When the team of Celine was proposed to me to accompany him on stage, I had already left Las Vegas and the Cirque du Soleil, I was already a” young retired “. “He had decided to put away his slippers, in July 2016. “But I couldn’t pass up this opportunity “, he says. A few days were enough to fine-tune their choreography in The Ballet, which is evidence of their complicity is immediate.

When asked what he sees as his job currently, Pepe sums up, with a smile : “today, I am an illustrator full-time, who does not dance more than Celine dion!! “

You can read our full exclusive interview with Pepe Munoz in the magazine Gala on newsstands this January 3, 2018.

Credits photos : Bestimage

Pepe MunozRene Angelil

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