IT'S A SNAP!
Calgary teen is the only Canadian to be part of an all-kids studio to create an ad campaign for Lego app
At the beginning of one of Bella Klassen's videos on her Youtube channel, the 16-year-old Calgary teen is shown tapping away at her iphone in the dark while still in bed.
It is the rather ungodly hour of 5:25 a.m. and Klassen types “tired girl ...” into her phone. We later see the dancer and choreographer groggily emerge from her bedroom and look to the camera with an unamused “this-totally-sucks” expression on her face. “Too early,” she whispers. Ten minutes later, Klassen is ready to start her day: “Let's go work out. Happy Friday babies,” she says.
The video is called “day in the life of a full-time Youtuber/high school student/dancer!” and has received nearly 82,000 views.
“I still wake up at 5:30 and I get up and do my workout,” says a decidedly perkier Klassen, in an interview with Postmedia from her Calgary home. “It's something that I've done since I was 11. It's just become habit.”
Day in the Life is just one of several videos Klassen has uploaded to her Youtube channel. Much of them cover typical teenage fare. She is shown picking up her friend for school and enthusiastically singing along to her Spotify playlist. She often talks about her clothes and there is usually quite a bit of discussion about how her hair is behaving on any given day. But there is also a lot of dancing.
Klassen has been at it since she was three. She began taking lessons at the age of seven. Recently, she became the only Canadian to join the team at Kids Creative Studio, Lego's first “kid-led, in-house creative studio” that also features young photographers, filmmakers, costume designers, set designers, musicians and a fellow dancer/ choreographer.
“My days are jam-packed, but I like it that way,” Klassen says. “I think it's really important for me to keep working toward goals in different areas and not just be focusing on dance, not just be focusing on school, not just be focusing on Youtube. I think it's important for me to have a well-rounded life and having all these aspects that I'm working on is something that I really strive for and it's something I really enjoy.”
At the time of this interview, Klassen was still a few days away from having her first Zoom meeting with Lego's creative team as assistant choreographer. The team will be producing a commercial that will stream on the Lego VIDIYO app, which is designed to allow kids to direct, produce and star in their own music videos.
“I know there are set designers, prop designers, singers, musicians,” she says. “There's one kid who does a whole bunch of acrobatics. We all have different roles and together we're creating this advertisement.”
“Something that is really cool about the Kids Creative Studio is that it's run for and by kids,” she adds. “We're actually the first project that Lego has ever done that is run by kids.”
Currently, Klassen trains with YYC Dance Project and the School of Alberta Ballet. One of her first gigs was dancing alongside Justin Bieber at the Winnipeg stop of his Purpose World Tour in 2017. Last year, she appeared as a dancer on the Vancouver-shot Netflix series Julie and the Phantoms and was front-and-centre in the 2017 music video for the song Friends by Brooklyn-based indie rockers Animal Years.
“I've been such a mover, even when I was younger,” she says. “That's why they put me into dance. I was always squirming, always moving around. It's something I love because I'm such a perfectionist and you can never be perfect in it. Even if I'm doing the best I have ever done, it's never going to be perfect and that's something I really love. It's a hard job to be in for sure. But it's something that you never stop working at and I really love that.”
Klassen currently teaches dance
My days are jam-packed, but I like it that way. I think it's really important for me to keep working toward goals in different areas.
to children and says she hopes to continue working in dance and choreography but also wants to move into acting.
“I want to be a dancer and an actor and I'm pretty positive I want to live in L.A. or Toronto when I'm older and I really want to work in film,” she says. “I did some work with Netflix on the show Julie and the Phantoms and that really gave me the bug for working in film. I love the behind-the-scenes stuff and doing it for hours and hours. I love getting the perfect cut.”
While the talent for the Kids Creative Studio was chosen based on accomplishments in a chosen field, most of the young participants also seem to be savvy social-media influencers. Klassen's Youtube Channel has 142,000 subscribers. The videos cover dance rehearsals and performances, but also follow her day-to-day life with topics such as “What I Eat at School,” “First Day of Public High School,” “Getting My First COVID -19 test,” and “MAJOR girl talk.” In fact, Lego first became aware of Klassen through her Youtube and Instagram channels and contacted her manager.
“When I talk to my viewers, I feel like a big sister,” she says. “I just really love inspiring people. I teach little nine-year-olds and they say they look up to me and that's an amazing feeling to be able to teach people and inspire people. That's something, as I'm getting older, that I'm learning more about and I'm really enjoying it.”