Hi guys! ♡

I'm Raphaela, founder of Vincent & Vienna.

For most of my life, I believed movement and body connection were the same thing.

I was wrong.

For over two decades, movement has been at the center of my life. I trained, performed, taught, traveled, and built a career through dance. Originally from Austria, I taught throughout the United States and Europe, served as a resident hip-hop master teacher in Beijing, China, performed in venues including Lincoln Center, appeared on MTV, BET, and The Today Show, and taught thousands of students along the way. From the outside, it looked like I was deeply connected to my body.

The truth was more complicated.

The professional dance world rewards discipline, endurance, and performance. It often asks us to push through pain, ignore fatigue, override discomfort, and keep going no matter what the body is trying to communicate.

Over time, I realized that being highly skilled at movement was not the same thing as being connected to myself.

In many ways, I had become less connected to my body, not more.

I knew how to make movement look effortless. I knew how to perform. I knew how to push through. But I had lost the ability to listen.

That realization changed everything.

I stepped away from performing. I reduced my teaching. And I began a personal journey to rebuild my relationship with my body—not as a machine to be managed, but as a source of information, wisdom, and truth.

For several years, I focused on learning how to listen again.

I became interested in what movement could reveal about physical health, emotional health, stress, confidence, resilience, and identity. I wanted to understand what genuine mind-body connection looked like beyond the illusion of performance. I simply wanted to experience the pure joy that dance and music has always brought me, in a new way. That journey became the foundation of Vincent & Vienna.

Today, I work one-on-one with people who want more than better technique or better fitness. My goal is NOT to create performers. My goal is NOT to create perfect bodies.

My work is about helping people become more embodied human beings.

Through movement, mobility, dance, strength, and awareness, I help people build a relationship with their bodies that supports their lives—not just their performance. My work blends intuition with a strong foundation in Hip-Hop Dance, the science of human movement, and body mechanics, allowing me to meet people where they are while helping them move toward where they want to be.

Because movement is not simply something we do. It is a way of listening.

And when we learn to listen, we often discover a deeper wisdom—a version of ourselves that already knows how to move, play, and feel fully alive.

I'm honored to be part of your journey.

XOXO,

Raphaela