Sofia Carson is known for Disney’s Descendants, but she recently got into the streaming game with Netflix’s popular Feel The Beat movie. The Netflix family film has Sofia Carson starring as April, a young woman who is trying to be a dancing star in New York, but a mistake sends her home and on a bit of a different dancing path. But does Carson do her own dancing in Netflix’s Feel The Beat?
The answer is yes and no. Before she hit it big in Hollywood, Sofia Carson was actually trained as a dancer. She studied dance at Maria Verdeja School of Arts in Miami, as she previously mentioned to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and she also said back when she was working on Descendents that due to her experience dancing since she was a young woman and competing in dance, she does ultimately consider herself “a dancer” as well as an actress.
Yet, she does not actually do all of the dancing in Netflix’s Feel The Beat. It was confirmed that Sofia Carson did have a dancing double, somewhat similar to how actors have stunt doubles, at least for some of the more intricate moves in the Netflix film. A lot of times the movie does feature close-ups of Sofia Carson dancing, so she is at least doing chunks of her own footwork, but a revealing social media post shared a bit about her dancing double in the movie.
Who Is Sofia Carson’s Dancing Double?
As it turns out, Jessy Lipke is Sofia Carson’s dancing double in Feel The Beat. Normally blonde, she dyed her hair to match Carson’s for the gig. Recently, she shared a bunch of behind-the-scenes shots from the making of the movie, in which she dressed as Carson's double for the Netflix movie.
Jessy Lipke actually runs Power Girl Fitness, an organization she founded after struggling with diet and weight issues as a younger dancer. Her organization helps young woman to find the right tools and a community to be comfortable and positive in when they are trying to get fit for competitive reasons. Lipke also often shares photos of her own dancing online.
While Sofia Carson may have had some help with some of the more intricate on-screen moves in Feel The Beat, the actress did share with Pop Sugar that her love for dance is what allowed her to fall in love with this project in the first place. She noted the story, with its focus on community and its youth cast, really brought out elements of her past she had forgotten about.
I fell in love with dance when I was three years old. I remember the moment when I stepped into my first pair of ballet shoes and walked into my first dance class. I remember the moment so vividly when I first walked onto a stage. It felt like home, and I felt free. All of those things that April had forgotten because she was so caught up in trying to be better, which is something that I struggle with, I have felt those things so vividly. Something about her story just felt so real for me. In the dancing moments and the more emotional moments, I felt like I was almost telling my own story. There's something really raw and honest and vulnerable about that, and it was a really incredible sensation.
At the end of the day, the dancing is a fun side component of Feel The Beat, but its story is more about a young woman coming into her own (after a disastrous mistake at an early audition) and figuring out what is important in her life. Sofia Carson brought that energy to the table with no help. Plus, it's worth noting the flick can be watched by the whole family, to boot. So, whether or not Carson is doing all of her own dancing, it’s easy to see why people have latched onto the movie, making it among Netflix's most popular offerings this summer.
