Please introduce yourself, what you do, why you do it, and what you want people to know about you.
My name is Shamar Rice and I am a Baltimore club dancer and actor based in Baltimore,MD working daily to fulfill my dreams to become a successful actor & dancer.
I started dancing at the age of five in 2005. My oldest brother inspired me to start getting into it while I was young, my whole entire family from my mom, three brothers, my cousins, and a few close ones that are like family to me was a dance group. We would practice for small and big performances whether it was inside performing for well-known individuals and gaining exposure, or outside in the public to gain exposure and to raise money. From there, we started gaining more exposure and we received more performance opportunities to battle other groups. I then stopped dancing in 2007 because of the bad news I got from my family that my oldest brother got incarcerated and it broke me and my entire family and I couldn’t dance anymore I lacked the motivation and drive to do almost just about anything because he’s the one that got me started dancing in the first place.
I want people to know that no matter the struggle or obstacles you just have to KEEP GOING! I know times are hard but everyone has a downtime in their life but stopping because things are hard is just hindering what you’re trying to accomplish. God is just testing you to see if you are really equipped! You will forever have control of how you move just always remember your WHY (What Hurts You) who are you doing this for?
What qualities make you different and unique from everyone else in the industry?
Honestly, one thing is that I have the drive. I go so hard in just about everything I do and I love it! I’m the type of person to keep putting reps in all day and night and when it gets hard I put myself to the test and do 10x the work. I also have the motivation, I’m determined, and my perseverance is crazy!
I’ll always have the motivation to do whatever it is that I want and have fun while doing it. I motivate myself every single day by waking up and praying to god that one day I’ll be a series regular lead on OWN,CW,FOX, etc or I’ll be a lead in a feature film, or I’ll move my family out of the hood, etc … I say these to make me go harder as a person because I use to be that one person that gives up easily and never try harder in order to receive the results that I WANT.
Determination for me is going all-in because you want it not because someone else wants it for you but YOU want it for you and you’re not going to stop until the goal is smashed and then guess what? On to the next! It never ends so don’t ever think it does.
One last thing is that I do this not only for me but I have loyal supporters and fans that are counting on me to make it to where I want to be and my support system is strong no matter if I know them or not they see something in me and I love them for that.
Describe THAT moment when you realized you wanted to do what you do now. Who did you tell first? What has it been like since that moment?
I realized that I wanted to start dancing seriously back in 2016, I started on this new dance platform called “Dubsmash” and the 2016-2017 era was crazy!!!! I’ve gained thousands of followers because of that and Baltimore club music surfaced on the app and it bought back memories from 2005 and you know I was playing around and made a couple of videos and my followers just started going crazy off of them, I then ended up going to high school and from there as a freshman I seen a guy dancing to Baltimore club music on talent show Fridays at the school and I guess God was sending me a calling.
I went up to the guy and connected and after that, he lead me to a dance group called “TeamDoRite” which stood for doing righte by any means necessary… from there I auditioned and got accepted then they trained me for an upcoming battle which was a battle event by “BmoreThanDance” CEO Errign LaBoo aka Neek B Chill’n.
After my first dance battle the dancers made me feel at home and supported me even when I was at my worse. I couldn’t thank them enough for making me into who I am today! Thank you.
I then told my mother that I wanted to take dance seriously again and she supported me every single step of the way. Since that moment it’s been nothing but uphill. We started dancing in Baltimore all over then traveled to New Jersey (Somerset) we traveled to New York as well. It was a long ride and it was all amazing.
What has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to face and how did you overcome it?
The biggest challenge I’ve had to face was one night me and some dancers from the Baltimore Club Community had an opportunity to perform and battle out in Philadelphia at this event called “Level Up Friday’s” and we got there and they treated us with much respect I mean I felt like we were famous lol!
Long story short I had a solo dance that I did and I ended tearing my meniscus and for those of you who don’t know it’s a tissue that’s in the back of my knee it tore.
I made an appointment and went in and long story short the doctor looked over my X-ray and he said that I had to get surgery so the tissue could get fixed and I looked at him and said okay and as soon as he walked out of the room I burst out crying because my dancing career was over, no one knew what I was going through and no one knew how I actually felt.
I called and told my mom and I just started crying over and over again. I told her I had to get surgery and she started to tear up and told me don’t cry and that it’s going to be alright. Two weeks later it was time for me to get my surgery and I prayed and prayed and prayed to god. He told me he got me and I believed him and everyone said that I was going to have a successful surgery. I did!
I woke up not feeling anything because I was on medicine and after it wore off a couple of hours later I was in pain but what no one noticed was that it was like that for 3 months and I had nightmare after nightmare.
I overcame everything by leaving it to god and also by me going to physical therapy and having talks with my mother and with my boyfriend! I motivated myself and they motivated me and gave me the courage when I didn’t have it. I was an emotional wreck I didn’t know what to do but then I found myself again and put the time into work on myself daily to get back to my normal self and that is exactly what I did for 7 months. It paid off and god has been there every step of the way & I give all my thanks to him and my family.
If you had to pick the TOP 3 people you’d want to meet that could take your career (or business) to the next level…who would those 3 people be?
Taraji P. Henson, Zendaya Coleman, and Michael B Jordan