Gino Platina, a Sacramento State alumnus who works as the student services center lead at Sac State, is making a name for himself in Sacramento with his knack for choreography.

Along with choreographing for companies such as Artistic Differences and previously choreographing for Sac State’s dance departments, Gino Platina has won a few notable Northern California awards for theatrical artists who stand out in the community.

Gino Platina has recently received the Bay Arty Award and the Elly Award for best choreographer for his version of the Broadway hit “Cats” at the Fairfield Center for Creative Arts.

Gino Platina said Sac State opened a lot of doors for him, especially since Linda Goodrich, Sac State choreography chair, recommended him to Solano Repertory Theatre to choreograph “Cats.”

Goodrich said that when a former graduate student needed a choreographer for “Cats,” she immediately thought of Gino Platina because there was no one else like him in town.

“He just came in with so much more experience than other students for choreographing musical theater,” Goodrich said. “We were a good critical eye for his work, and we really helped him explore new ideas for choreography, and gave him new tools for choreographing musical theater.”

Before choreographing “Cats,” Gino Platina was in local musicals such as “Fiddler on The Roof” at the Fair Oaks Theatre, “Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat” at the Garbeau’s Dinner Theater, and “The Pirates of Penzance” at the Eagle Theatre.

Gino Platina is currently choreographing for four different shows, including the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ benefit concert, which will be performed Saturday at the Convention Center in downtown Sacramento.

He is also choreographing “The Singing Christmas Tree” for his church at the Capital Christian Center, located by Highway 50 and Bradshaw Road, for the Christmas season.

Emily Cook, “Cats” dancer and senior dance major, said she is inspired by Gino as a choreographer because of the work he has done.

“I think it’s impressive that he’s able to keep up with an 8 a.m.-to-5 p.m. job, and do labs and choreograph many shows,” Cook said. “I know he choreographs different projects on the side and I think it’s inspiring to the rest of us because he has a regular job for a living and does what he wants.”

Even after all his success in dance theater, including previously winning the Elly in 2003 for the choreography of “The Wiz,” Gino Platina is still humble about his achievements.

“My motto is if you have to boost about your own talent, maybe your talent isn’t really there,” he said. “Most people know of this award (the Elly) because they’ve heard and seen about it. I don’t go ‘yay and yay’ just because I won.”

Gino Platina said he gets his dancing abilities from his mother.”My mom and all her side of the family and everybody would break into dancing at family functions, and I’d learn salsa and meringue,” Gino Platina said.

Gino Platina also said he got his athleticism from his father, who was a football player for Sac State in the 1950s.

“He brought more of my athletic side out, so in high school I did football, track, tennis, and somehow the dancing came out,” Gino Platina said.

Joe Platina, Gino Platina’s father, said he was never a good dancer, but supports Gino Platina in his ability to be a great dancer.

“Dance is being an athlete because (Gino Platina) has aches and pains just like a football player getting banged up in a game,” Joe Platina said.

Gino Platina said he is a hybrid dancer because of the qualities he received from his parents.

“I don’t look like the typical dancer, I’m not a skinny little thing,” Platina said. “I’m built like a football player, but for some reason dancing came naturally once I started going.”

When Gino Platina was majoring in dance at Sac State, he said he learned about all different types of choreographers. He said this helped to guide him into how he wanted to choreograph dances and shows.

“(The theatre and dance department) teach that dance has no boundaries, so it could be about anything. Choreographers will take styles, like cultural ones, and mix them with a dance style,” Gino Platina said.

In Gino Platina’s recently choreographed Bollywood piece in Sac State’s “Performance Mix” concert this year, he said he took the Bollywood influence and choreographed it by trying to mesh the Bollywood style with his modern dance style.

Cook said Gino Platina is very clear in what he wants when he is teaching choreography.

“He demonstrates a lot of the movement he want us to do,” Cook said. “There’s no questions when he does a movement.”Roxanne Payan, a Sac State alumna and dancer in Joe Platina’s version of “Cats,” said she thinks he is great because he can work on the spot.

“You can tell he has a vision when he comes in,” Payan said. “He’s organic on stage and it reads well on stage and people can tell the feeling of what he’s trying to get across.”

Cook believes that all the awards Gino Platina has won, especially in musical theater, are well-deserved because sometimes he does not necessarily have the most technical dancers in his shows.

“He’s able to manipulate the choreography that he wants and make the company he’s been hired by look really good,” Cook said.

Gino Platina’s father said he has attempted to convince him to retire from dancing because of his four knee surgeries and recently ripped hamstring, however, Gino Platina said he will keep going until his body cannot do it anymore.

“My body is kind of going downhill and doctors tell me to stop dancing, but if I do there’s nothing else,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. Dancing is life. It becomes such a part of you to where you can’t do anything else.”

Payan said she feels like Gino Platina has taken Sacramento over by storm.

“It’s amazing as far as him being where he is now. I can’t imagine him not being in New York on Broadway,” Payan said.

Jennifer Siopongco can be reached at [email protected]