Training:
Tika's dancing began at age 4 with classes in the Isadora Duncan technique in Cambridge, Mass. Upon moving to India, when she was 7, she was introduced to Modern, Ballet and Traditional Folk dances from Africa and Europe. It was in these classes that her passion for ethnic dance was first discovered. Returning to America at 14, she continued her training and studied Jazz at the Dupree Dance Academy in Los Angeles CA. In community college classes she discovered the work of Katherine Dunham, Erick Hawkins and Lester Horton. In 1993 Tika moved back to India and began studying, performing and receiving mentorship from dance therapist Amiyo Devienne under who's guidance she experienced teaching for the first time. By the mid-1990s Tika began focusing on the dances of the African diaspora . Based in San Francisco since 1996 Tika has maintained a comprehensive study of Brazilian, Cuban, Haitian and West African Dance from the region of Guinea Bissau. Her passion, reverence and fascination for these dance forms are a continual source of inspiration and devotional study. Brazil: Since 1999 Tika has made pilgrimages to Salvador, Bahia Brazil to study both music and dance. At the Escola de Dança da Fundação Cultural she has trained with members of the Balé Folclórico da Bahia and with renouned teachers Rosangela Silvestre & Vera Passos In 2008 Tika began collaborating with Rosangela to create workshops, classes and performances, throughout Northern California to help promote the Silvestre DanceTraining in Brazil. See video of the training. Teaching: Tika began developing her unique teaching style in 1997, when given the opportunity of assisting two Master teachers: Mabiba Baegne (West Africa) and Tania Santiago (Brazil), who's classes followed each other 3 times a week at Rhythm & Motion, now ODC Dance Commons in San Francisco. This work trade lasted for several years. Both classes featured traditional live drumming which was a major component in understanding and developing skill as a dancer in these related forms while leading large groups of dancers. Tika now has 15 years of professional teaching experience and has been a full time instructor since 2008. She has taught throughout the US, in South Asia and Brazil, as well as though UC Berkeley's Women's Wellness Retreat and at Kosmos Camp. Tika's classes seek to connect people with the universal and important world of dance expressed through the African diaspora. She teaches with great passion to both current and traditional music inviting people to focus on rhythm, symbolism and body awareness, rather then heart rates and body image. Her motivation is to introduce people to the rich and important world of dance stemming from West Africa, to understand how it influences all dance and to open the body/mind though movement.
|  
|
