FAKE IT TILL YOU
Lance Savali has danced with J-Lo, been sacked by Madonna because of his star sign and is a regular reality TV Kiwi superstar – but he tells Sapeer Mayron he’s not stopping there.
The call from somewhere in the direction of a tattoo parlour: ‘‘Savali squad!’’ Lance Savali is walking along Auckland’s Karangahape Rd. A towering figure with short bleached blond hair (primed for any colour), black nail varnish (which he proudly painted himself) and tattoos everywhere.
There’s another shout from a passing van, which parks up around the corner, hazard lights flashing, and a group of young men sprint up the street to surround a crouching, smiling Savali for a photo. Savali’s agent graciously obliges.
Savali has danced with global stars such as Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna and Beyonce and he’s currently touring Europe’s biggest stadiums with Chris Brown. But despite being able to stop traffic, 31-year-old Savali doesn’t think he’s ‘‘made it’’ yet.
Besides, he’s not done. Savali is a dancer first and foremost, but he’s also a musician, DJ, television personality and was TikTok New Zealand’s most viewed artist of 2022, ahead of Drax Project and Benee. It’s a perfect medium for Savali and the dance moves that flow with such ease they seem to drip out of his long limbs. Views for his clips frequently reach into the hundreds of thousands.
From tomorrow Savali is back on prime-time television screens in
Treasure Island: Fans v Faves, a return to TVNZ 2’s Celebrity Treasure Island universe after finishing runner-up to Chris Parker in the wildly popular 2021 season.
But no, Savali says, ‘‘I haven’t made it’’. And he has a vision beyond the entertainment business. In December he and a friend opened a barbershop in Brisbane. It’s a place he hopes will become a haven for men to share their innermost thoughts.
‘‘I think the barbershop is such a cool culture, it’s a safe space, it’s a cool space for us males. It’s a necessity for us, we like to feel good and look good. We can talk shit. I feel like that leads to conversations with men about cool things.’’
Savali, who has roots in Fale’ula and Nofoali’i in Samoa, was 17 when he left Wellington and moved to Auckland hoping to become a dancer. He paid a friend $50 a week in rent, money that his mum Janeen Tatapu sent up.
Dance was clearly always important, Tatapu says. Savali and his cousins danced together for church and small performances, and he even made playing rugby look like a hip-hop show in how he would duck and dive across the field.
‘‘It was a very emotional moment for me,’’ Tatapu says of the day Savali moved away. ‘‘But I was really, really happy he took the opportunity and stepped out on his own to achieve what he has achieved.’’
It took just a couple of months living in Auckland before Savali was invited to audition for New Zealand dance legend Parris Goebel, who last year earned an Emmy Award for her choreography of Rhianna’s Savage X Fenty show.
When Goebel approached him to join her Royal Family dance crew, Savali couldn’t believe it.
‘‘You mean your studio with 30 female dancers and only one other guy? I went, I was so intimidated, this little 17-year-old frigid boy, in front of these beautiful females who dance so much better than me … but it just kicked off from there. In no way did I think I would join the Royal Family. I just thought I was coming up here to dance with the boys and, I don’t know, do something. I just knew I was good enough to do something. What that something was, I couldn’t tell you.’’
The Royal Family took Savali all over the world to dance in competitions, and eventually audition for international megastars.
He’s never had formal dance training, and instead is a firm believer in ‘‘fake it till you make it’’. And belief in oneself, too. His role models are boundary pushers such as Frank Ocean, Freddie Mercury, Prince and Tupac Shakur. ‘‘Real individuals who didn’t give a f… and stayed true to what they wanted to do,’’ says Savali.
‘‘If you really have the mentality of ‘no-one else has what I have to offer’, it’s going to rub off in a way.
It’s contagious.’’
It’s knowing where he comes from that is his advantage on the world stage, he says. ‘‘I know that for a fact. I am from New Zealand. We have an energy on stage, on the dance floor, no-one else has.
‘‘I’ve just always known that the dancer next to me cannot give you what I can, and I am cool with that. If you say no, that’s your loss.’’
But it’s not all confidence – it’s fate too, Savali says.
‘‘Everything that happens in my life definitely happens for a reason, at the right time. It freaks me out, whenever I think back to things and realise that was exactly how it was supposed to happen. Every decision I make, it’s always been the right one so far, touch wood.’’
Even when Madonna dumped him and all the other Scorpios on her team that year, over star sign differences.
‘‘If I didn’t get fired from
Madonna I would have never worked with Rihanna, I would have never gone on the world tour, I would have never done Savage X Fenty. So I need to thank Madonna,’’ he laughs.
Back on New Zealand soil, Savali joined Celebrity Treasure Island (CTI), where he leaned into the game of it all and became a bit of a trickster. The following year, he was a judge on Dancing with the Stars.
Savali loved the experience so much, he’s gone back for more, joining the cast of Treasure Island: Fans v Faves, a spinoff series of CTI ‘‘fans’’ facing off against celebrity favourites from previous seasons.
Nah, it wasn’t that he loved it, he jokes. He went back because he didn’t win. ‘‘But you can’t buy that experience, you know what I mean,’’ he says. ‘‘That’s kind of why – after supporting charity – I wanted to do it. You put yourself in an uncomfortable position. You have no phone, you have no music. You have no connection to the world.
‘‘I feel like people want that these days, it’s a good excuse to really disconnect and see what you’re really about.’’
When he isn’t filming, singing, dancing, remixing, producing, podcasting or opening businesses, Savali is a steadfast friend to a group he calls ‘‘the f…ing shit’’.
They’re a crew he is always thrilled to feature on his TikTok, and they’re who he misses the most when he’s touring or travelling for work.
It’s for them that Savali even wants to be a star, earning high figures and renting luxury villas in Bali. And to buy his mother a house – a pledge he made over a video message one Mother’s Day in front of their church community.
‘‘Until I have cracked it and my friends and my family are good, they don’t have to do anything and we can all travel the world together, that’s when I have made it,’’ he says.
His best friend, Taran MaiavaParis, says while she barely remembers exactly how they met or why they became friends almost a decade ago, she can pinpoint when they became more like a chosen family.
It was the early days of Savali’s heart condition being detected. He was born with supraventricular tachycardia, which meant that anytime he overexerted himself, his heart would race to 240 beats per minute (bpm) – normal range is close to 126-153bpm – a terrifying experience.
On one occasion, it was MaiavaParis who was able to help him through it until the ambulance got to their dance studio.
‘‘And I could just see in his eyes the fear in the moment, and it was like, ‘OK, I was there to help him talk through it’,’’ she says. ‘‘He needed me in that moment. That was what solidified our friendship, because I was like an automatic safe place.’’
In the early days, Savali’s supraventricular tachycardia made dancing – or any serious exertion at all – difficult. He would have to take a break and get his heart rate down from 240bpm, before jumping back up and continuing with rehearsals, or even live performances.
In the middle of concerts, he would have to sneak off stage, bring his heart rate back, and run back on.
Six years ago, he had a keyhole surgery to repair his heart, but even today he still has irregular heart beats sometimes, which can be solved fairly simply with a couple of star jumps.
It’s why his chosen charity for CTI is the Heart Foundation.
To Maiava-Paris and their other friends, Savali is a much gentler soul than he allows his online personality to be.
‘‘He’s so lovely, and aware, he’s got an aura about him. I think it comes from our upbringing too, we’re both Pacific Islanders. It’s that same way of being respectful to those around you and giving people time and space.
‘‘He’s my absolute safe person, my safe place. He’s that person if I need anyone, he would be there,’’ she says.
Maiava-Paris and Savali and another friend started the media company Mosaique, primarily to give other talented people a platform.
Savali has released three songs under the Mosaique name; his track Floor Is Lava has more than 1 million Spotify streams.
Maiava-Paris has also watched him delve into acting – he was in a short film she produced called True Love by Raymond Edwards, which featured in the New Zealand International Film Festival in 2021.
‘‘He’s a natural, which is annoying – he’s good at everything,’’ she says.
Savali is a fast thinker and a faster talker. He doesn’t love being alone – it’s why he bought his American bulldog named Gunna – and he hates dwelling on the past. Or as others call it, ‘‘reflecting on the moment’’.
‘‘Do I just sit in my room and be like, ‘Wow, Super Bowl was really cool, this moment happened.’ Like, why? Just go look on Instagram and look at the video, and let’s do something else,’’ he says.
He’s too busy to sit around reflecting.
As for how he decides what to get busy with, well, there still isn’t exactly a system or plan in place, he just chases what he’s passionate about.
‘‘I guess it’s just me building blocks for me to get to where I want to be, whatever that place looks like,’’ he muses.
‘‘I don’t know if I will ever find that place. Say when I do ‘make it’, when I get there I might be like, what’s next? Maybe this life I live will never be fulfilled.’’
Treasure Island: Fans v Faves starts tomorrow, 7.30pm, TVNZ 2 and TVNZ+.