Chelsea Samuel, a third-year physiotherapy students, jugging between being a top athlete, model, dancer and a four-year Physiotherapy degree.
Chelsea has been showing her dance moves to the local community since the age of three. Through her dancing journey, she is now part of a team called Basic Black, which in terms, has won the World Championship twice in a row.
I’ve danced from the age of 3, my dad hosted shows for the community and I was never too shy to get up and dance and my mom encouraged my hyperactive ways with making me dance myself to sleep every night ? . I was never classically trained or went dancing school when I was small cause we could not afford it, I finally got to dance school when I was 8, but I grew by association with dancers who were trained. So I learnt contemporary dancing from the age of 8 until about 20 and then now for the past 2 years tapped into urban and hip hop dancing so I can become more versatile as a dancer and am now part of the team called Basic Black that for 2 years in a row has won the world championship title in Croatia. This year’s world championships that we already qualified for has been postponed so this came to stand still but I still do online live classes etc.
It took two years for Chelsea to get into the physiotherapy programme, which is just another example of how committed she is to her profession. Her first choice was BA General, then she went on to Sports Science and finally, made it into the BSc Physiotherapy programme.
Sprinting
I started or discovered I was a sprinter in my last year of high school , grade 12. I was initially at a music and art school San Souci high where I played the trumpet and violin cause I was on a music bursary but due to circumstances changing in my family I had to go to a “normal government “ school where athletics was an extra curriculum but I only participated in my last year of high school. So I made the Western Province and National team for schools where my relay team placed 2nd. I then got a sports bursary at UWC and that’s how I am able to have my tuition fees be paid, with a sports student bursary otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to study at all. So this is the biggest part of my life as I’m working towards going to the Olympics that’s are now postponed but my goal is Paris 2024 Olympics.
Modeling
Modelling happened for me 2 years ago, I’ve never been a shy kid and cameras never made me uncomfortable. So one of my friends has been a model since she was a kid, and she encouraged me to try it out. She had then told her agency about me and they asked me to come in for an interview. From there things just took off, my first job was an Adidas commercial, and I’ve done several jobs for different companies over the two years such as Total Sports, Mr Price, Nike, Discovery Bank, international clients such as Dare2Be etc.. and from there onward, castings and shoots became less and less uncomfortable, I became more and more comfortable and confident in who I was as a person. All of these components make me who I am, juggling it all is a question many people will have. To be honest, I don’t know how either.
Congratulations on everything that you’ve achieved so far, Chelsea. We’re incredibly proud of you.
