Exclusive Interview • Commercial & Street Dance • Where Are They Now
Karla Sandoval: From Mexico to the New York Dance Floor
She left a country where dance "is not really seen as a real career," bet everything on New York, and built a life in commercial and street dance. Here's her Dance Mogul Magazine interview — and what she's dancing now.
By Dance Mogul Magazine | Originally featured March 2024 | Updated & expanded 2026
Karla Sandoval.
Artist Spotlight — 2026
A Peridance Center graduate from Mexico, Karla Sandoval has spent the years since this interview deep in New York's dance ecosystem — as a company member of the popping-rooted Sun Kim Dance Theatre, which continues to tour major stages, and as a commercial and street dancer specializing in popping, waacking, and house. Her career, in her own words, "is just getting started."
Karla Sandoval grew up in Mexico asking her parents to play Shakira in the living room so she could follow along with the music videos. That instinct — to move, to copy, to learn — never left her. What did change was the size of the stage she was willing to chase it on.
When Dance Mogul Magazine first published this conversation in 2024, Sandoval had recently graduated from New York's Peridance Center and was stepping into professional company life. Below is that interview in full, followed by where her path has taken her since.
The Original Interview
Dance Mogul: What was it like developing as a dancer in your country?
Karla Sandoval: I started my dance journey when I was nine years old, and by the time I was twelve, I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was lucky to be training at a well-known studio in my area in Mexico. I had the opportunity to train in different dance styles and go to dance competitions where I met dancers and choreographers from all over the world, allowing me to explore my dance and develop into the dancer I wanted to be. Back in my early dance days, there weren't as many opportunities for a career in Mexico that wasn't being a ballerina; that definitely made me question my goals for my dancing, but I never let it overcome me, so I just persisted until I found that there was something I could do, that I fit in.
Karla Sandoval (center) with fellow dancers.
Dance Mogul: Did your family support you dancing?
Karla Sandoval: Thankfully, my family has always supported my dancing; my parents are my biggest supporters; they took me to every dance competition, picked me up from long-hour rehearsals, and did everything that was in their hands for me to keep dancing even when times were hard. I think they always knew this was more than a hobby; they loved seeing my passion every time I was on a stage.
Dance Mogul: Who were some of your mentors and initial inspirations?
Karla Sandoval: At the start of my journey, I was taken under the wing of my studio director; she was the one who shared her passion for dance with me and taught me everything I knew from the ages of nine years old to twenty years old, she became my mentor when I started teaching and allowed me to explore choreographing too. I have always found inspiration in Pop artists, how big their shows are, and how they perform like no one else. I looked up to Shakira, Beyonce, and JLO; watching their concerts and music videos drove me to train in commercial and street styles.
"Everyone has a different time, everyone has a different path, and the expectations we have for ourselves should never be compared to someone else's career."
Dance Mogul: When did you realize you wanted to be a professional?
Karla Sandoval: I think I didn't know what the words "professional dancer" meant until later in my journey. I knew I wanted to dance but didn't know where that would take me. When I graduated high school, I was trying to decide where to go to college, and then I came to the realization that I didn't want to go to school for a degree that wasn't dance-related; that's when I started to research about going abroad to pursue dance, sadly there are not many college-level schools in Mexico where dance is an option for a degree let alone commercial dance, I think there is none. As I was thinking about how I could get a degree in dance, I stumbled across Peridance Center in NYC and decided to do the two-year certificate program, which I graduated from last fall.
Karla Sandoval.
Dance Mogul: What are some of the ups and downs you encountered on your dance journey?
Karla Sandoval: It has definitely been a rollercoaster ride; as of this year, I have been a dancer for over 17 years; some of my down moments have been being told I am not enough, having to accept the "no's" from a lot of people and places, not knowing where this journey was going to take me and feeling overwhelmed by it, not being able to have my family next to me to celebrate big accomplishments. But these definitely overshadowed by my ups, which, as of now, are moving to a different country to dance, meeting people from all over the world, discovering and being part of the street dance community, and growing as a dancer in an unimaginable way in the last three years, finding my purpose every day, and many many more.
Dance Mogul: Tell us about your current projects.
Karla Sandoval: There are many exciting things coming for 2024; I recently started dancing for Metamorphosis, a contemporary dance company led by Allana Loraine. I'm currently a company member of Sun Kim Dance Theater, and we are starting the 2024 season this month. For the past few months, I have been under the mentorship of Tia Rivera, who has helped me tap into my brand and path to excel in the commercial dance world.
Dance Mogul: What advice do you have for the next generation of dancers and dance educators?
Karla Sandoval: Something I always say to my friends and something I have to remind myself often is that everyone has a different time, everyone has a different path, and the expectations we have for ourselves should never be compared to someone else's career. There is so much out there to be explored, so many places where you are wanted, and so many things you can still create; dance is limitless.
Karla Sandoval.
Dance Mogul: What would you like your dance legacy to be?
Karla Sandoval: I want to inspire people to tap into their strongest form of dance as an artist; I want to create dance and perform dance in a way where people can feel they've watched something more than just a dance. I want my work to inspire people to break out from fear and follow their biggest aspirations, and I also want my journey to be filled with joy and love from the people closest to me.
Dance Mogul: Is there anyone you'd like to thank for helping you?
Karla Sandoval: I will eternally thank my family for being as supportive as they are with my dreams, my friends back in Mexico who believed in me since day ONE, and every teacher I have crossed paths with who has allowed me to be me. I learned I can be any type of dancer I want to be: my friends in NY, who I have learned more from than everything else, and NY itself for giving me the chance.
A Dancer Built From Many Styles
Sandoval describes herself as a multidisciplinary dancer — a jazz and contemporary upbringing layered, over the past several years, with commercial work and street styles like popping, waacking, and house. That refusal to be one thing is the throughline of her whole story. Back in Mexico she trained at a competitive studio for years, started teaching at fifteen, and grew as much from watching younger dancers learn as from her own classes. When the ballerina track that dominated her country's dance world didn't fit, she didn't quit — she went looking for the lane that did.
That search led her across a border and a certificate program at Peridance Center, one of New York's central training grounds. She has been candid that it wasn't a smooth road: seventeen-plus years of dancing came with a long list of "no's" and stretches of not knowing where any of it led. Her answer to all of it has been the same — persist, stay curious, and keep the comparison to other people's timelines out of it.
Where Is Karla Sandoval Now?
The company Sandoval named as a home base in our 2024 interview has only grown since. Sun Kim Dance Theatre — the New York company founded by choreographer Sun Kim that expands popping and street dance into theatrical and contemporary work — remains active on major stages heading into 2026, touring a dance-theater piece, Alien of Extraordinary, drawn from the realities of the U.S. artist-visa system. It's exactly the kind of ambitious, boundary-pushing street-rooted work Sandoval said she wanted to be part of.
Beyond the company, Sandoval has continued to build a commercial and street-dance career in New York, the city she credits with "giving me the chance." In interviews since our feature, she has doubled down on the mix that defines her — commercial dance grounded in popping, waacking, and house — and on a simple conviction about her trajectory: her career, she says, is only getting started, and she is "so excited for what's to come." For readers who want to follow along, she shares her work on Instagram at @karlasandoval_dancer.
"There is so much out there to be explored, so many places where you are wanted… dance is limitless."
Why It Matters to Dance Mogul Magazine
Karla Sandoval's journey is a textbook case of the empowerment Dance Mogul Magazine exists to document. She grew up somewhere that told her, structurally, that a dance career wasn't realistic — and instead of accepting that ceiling, she went and found a place where she was wanted. The lesson she keeps returning to — that everyone moves on their own timeline and comparison is the thief of the work — is exactly the kind of hard-won, usable wisdom we want in front of the next young dancer staring down their own list of "no's."
Her story also strengthens the global map we're building through our Exclusive Interviews and our Dance Styles Hub, where the street dance community she found her home in is documented as a living, borderless culture — one that welcomed a dancer from Mexico and gave her a stage.
Keep Exploring Dance Mogul Magazine
The Story Continues
Karla Sandoval said she wanted her work to make audiences feel they'd watched "something more than just a dance," and she wanted her journey filled with joy and the people closest to her. Two years on, she's still in New York, still stacking styles, still dancing with a company that keeps reaching for bigger stages — and still, by her own account, just getting started.
Dance Mogul Magazine will keep following her, because Sandoval embodies the thing we most want the next generation to believe: that where you're from doesn't set the ceiling on where you can dance.
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