For the New Year, International Dance Artist Raquela isn’t making your typical new year’s resolutions. She is hitting the Latin market hard. Her year has already started off with a small release of the Spanish version of “Tell it to my Heart.” The version will be widely available just after Valentine’s Day.
This version allows Raquela to embrace her Hispanic side, which she’s always been connected to through her mom. She was raised bi-racial, both Mexican and German. “I looked odd to everybody,” she explained. “So I guess I had to build my own world around me.” That world started at a record store in Northern California where she grew up. She bought Broadway musicals and Freestyle dance music and it grew into an obsession with music, singing and live performance.
Raquela has been singing since she was 9 years old. She started out in the choir of a Baptist church in the little town of Elk Grove. The teachers helped her learn all about music and train her voice throughout her adolescence. From there she got a scholarship to study Opera in Los Angeles at Biola University. Although it seemed like a perfect opportunity, Raquela realized she didn’t want to do opera. She wanted to do Broadway. So she packed up her bags and transferred to University of California of Irvine to get her BFA in musical theatre.
Throughout the 80s she was a huge part of the theatre scene. But this supportive group of artists was greatly affected by the AIDS epidemic. Some of the most supportive people in her life were lost. Raquela never forgot them though. As her career progressed, she knew it was part of her job as an artist to give back to society. When Raquela became Miss Orange County she focused a lot of her pageantry on fundraising towards AIDS research. Miss Orange County was an opportunity. She sang her heart out at benefits to raise money for a cause so close to her heart and history. The experience, she said, helped her grow as a person and a performer.
“I’m addicted to applause,” Raquela admitted. Music and performing is how she expresses herself, whether it’s through Dance music or musical theatre. Yet as an artist she is also reaching out to her audience. She wants her music to bring something to other people. Whether it’s three hours on stage or three minutes in a song, her performance helps someone get through their day. Raquela believes each person can “find a song or a performance that explains exactly what they’re feeling or going through or who they are as a person.” The applause is what solidifies that idea. They don’t clap just for Raquela; they clap for the feelings that they understand and they connect with.
That resounding moment, when she can catch her breath and listen to the sounds of approval rippling from the audience, is why she sings. That record store in California drew her into dance music, along with her mother’s Latina influence. She hopes that dance will catch up with technology and make a comeback. “Dance music is about the celebration of life,” Raquela said. “That’s what it’s about and that’s why I do it.”
Look out for her Latin version of “Tell it to my Heart” this February. Her music can be found on ITunes, CD Baby, eMusic and Amazon Music. Keep an eye out for more Taylor Dane songs from the 80s, because she’s not done with him yet.

















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