Vanessa Mambi was born in Curaçao. On the island she is known since her childhood by her appearances on television, the children’s choir Zjozjolí and various musicals. At age 10, she has won a singing contest with her own composition.
Her job at an accountants firm was not what she wanted for the rest of her life. She chose for the Island’s elementary teacher training (Akademia Pédagógiko Korsou) and graduated as best of the year from the bunch.
Vanessa’s introduction to the world of salsa was when she took her first salsa class at Salsation Curaçao. After having moved to the Netherlands in 2002 she continued with her salsa classes at Salsaventura in the Hague. Soon after she found herself performing student demo’s at different parties and events.
Just a year later, she successfully auditioned with Salsa Dance Squad (SDS), managed by Eric Lalta and Liduina Lovert. And another year later she started her career as a performer. With SDS she has travelled through entire Europe and even had the opportunity to perform in New York, USA.
After SDS she danced at the Dutch Salsa Championships with Patrick Mussendijk. They finished 1st runner up. This is where ViP, which stood for Vanessa i (&) Patrick, the Dance academy and ViP student team was born. They worked together for 2 years after which Vanessa continued with the student group and started her own company (2006): Vanessa i (&) Partners.
In addition to creating choreographies and training her ViP-ers she has been giving dance classes until 2011 for several dance schools in Amsterdam and surroundings. Vanessa has worked on numerous occasions with other well-known dancers and singers and appeared in video clips.
She now offers her own classes, private lessons and also participates in Primary school and Secondary education dance projects. She has two ViP dance teams consisting of ViP ON1 project team and ViP ON2 project team. She is also starting a ViP Ladies Project in 2013.
Vanessa lives to dance and to teach others to dance. Her ViP Dance goal: To teach dancers how to share their life experiences and feelings with the audience through body expression. Her own motto in life: With discipline, focus and perseverance you will prevail for sure!