Gearing Up for Success
Exclusive Interview by Huáscar Robles
A media tour and a sizzling video jumpstarts a young singer/songwriter
into stardom.

The production of her first music video should have exhausted Maxinne. But the electro pop star, whose career is just blossoming, soldiers on, practicing choreographies, doing yoga and meditation and gearing up for her Puerto Rican media tour that begins this month.

“I do bikram yoga, go to my choreographers here in Puerto Rico and New York and go to my group dance classes to loosen myself up to feel comfortable with the stage and with myself,” says the Puerto Rican musician.

It’s a tight schedule, but she hopes it will bear fruit after the media tour begins. Maxinne, who recently broke into the music scene with her single “Love is Music,” will tour the island to promote the album of the same name starting March 16. The tour will consist of radio and television appearances as well as private performances in Puerto Rico’s hottest clubs. 
The tour will also promote the video for “Love is Music,” which was directed by José “Pepe” Lara and Enrique Volckers.  The video was conceptualized and put together by a team of Boricua experts. The directors shot one of the scenes at Brava night club in El Hotel San Juan. The scene sees Maxinne in elegant garb and picture perfect make up, dancing or hanging with friends in the colorful and explosive club backdrop. One of the most challenging scenes was shot in the San Juan Natatorium. The scene featured performer and actress Aris Mejías and two members of the Synchronized Swimming Federation team swimming gracefully making the fringes of their asymmetric dress ebb through the water.   They were meant to represent muses, which were part of Maxinne’s original idea.

“She wanted to express how she feels inspired and transported every time she writes a song,” remembers Angélica Mercado, Maxinne’s tour producer and the video’s field director. “It was a challenge to conceptualize the idea and make it a reality, to get to that world Maxinne wanted and that image that she wanted to see.”

All in all, the production was a lot of fun, says Maxinne. She reminisces about one particular moment when Volckers instructed her to pretend to catch stars that would later be added digitally.

“For me, the video was easy because it’s something that comes from my heart. The only hard part was when I had to catch stars and the director wanted me to catch them and I kept trying to catch these stars
that don’t exist,” she says.

Maxinne is still working on her stage presence, dance choreography and confidence. Waldo González, director of the School of Performing Arts in Guaynabo, is helping Maxinne get in shape for the tour. They work mainly on dance moves and style to bolster her presence at the live events.

She says she is ready and could do it “tomorrow” if asked to. She says that opening for Daddy Yankee at the Fiesta Americana Concert last November gave her confidence. The concert, she explains, was crowded with reggaetón fans, but her electro pop performance won the attention of the crowd, some of whom later approached her to congratulate her.

While Maxinne is performing in Puerto Rico, her music might be already playing in the states. Promotional efforts in the continental United States will be handled by Silvestro Perrina, a former vice president of Univision network, who
specializes in music production.

Mercado adds that Perrina will send singles to a network of over 7,000 radio stations and to record pools, which are organizations with members of different dance clubs.

Maxinne is already writing songs for her next album and is hoping to break into Broadway, but for now she’ll focus on captivating the Puerto Rican audience.

“I hope people like my music and relate so they can relate to me,” she says. “[The fans] are the ones who help you, with their smiles, their love and the way they treat you.”   

— Huáscar Robles