Five years ago, Quebec City dancer, choreographer and singer Enola Bédard was mowing lawns with her father and selling chocolate with her mother during the pandemic to pay back money she borrowed for dance classes.
On Sunday, the 25-year-old was dancing with Shakira at the World Cup halftime show in New Jersey.
“I cannot express how amazing it was performing with her,” she told CTV News. “It was crazy. I feel like I’m still on a cloud right now. I still can’t believe that happened.
“I was hearing the crowd cheering, it’s like 82,000 which is insane,” she said. “After that, I was really emotional. I was like, I cannot believe it started just from a video manifesting for months, praying for it, and it really happened.”
Bédard booked the gig after the Colombian pop diva launched a contest on social media looking for a dance piece to include in her show.
“As soon as I saw this, I knew it was kind of my chance to just go for it,” she said.
The “Dai Dai” group dance that started on the Santa Monica Pier ended up catching Shakira’s eye.
After getting the invitation, however, Bédard and her crew waited months before Shakira’s team reached out.
Bédard said she manifested the dream and wrote “I will dance with Shakira” on a Post-it note every day before being contacted.
“I was manifesting this for so many months, and then a week prior to the performance, her team reached out,” she said.
Bédard said meeting the pop star was a next-level experience.
“What really shocked me is how Shakira is really the best human ever,” said Bédard. “She made sure to say hi to all of her dancers, even us. She was hugging us, telling us she was so grateful that we were there.”
Bédard is now based in Los Angeles and has added pop star to her resume, releasing several songs this year.
She moved south after she choreographed a solo piece when she was 16 that earned her a scholarship and trip to L.A.
She has performed alongside Jennifer Lopez, Usher and others, as well as choreographed pieces for Shania Twain.
The performance at MetLife Stadium was a long way from working 60 hours a week during the pandemic in Quebec City.
At the time, she started filming dance videos with her mom, gaining very little traction before a behind-the-scenes and accompanying production video at a mall went viral and got 30 million views.
She has never forgotten the work she put in and thinks about where she was just a half-decade ago.
“Every single day, to be honest,” she said. “Literally five years ago in Quebec having no Visa, trying to move it to the U.S., mowing lawns with my dad, selling chocolates with my mom and filming like four videos every single day with my mom, nothing would work.
“It really showed me that if you never stop, it’s going to happen... It’s a lot of believing in the impossible, to be honest.”
