Today we’d like to introduce you to sarAika movement collective. They and their team shared their story with us below:
sarAika movement collective is a contemporary dance collective with a distinct taste for interdisciplinary collaboration. Founded in 2021 by Aika Takeshima, an immigrant from Japan, and Sara Pizzi, an immigrant from Italy, found a common artistic language from their perspective as immigrants living in America. Unifying their skills and knowledge as dancers, choreographers, activists, and part of the LGBTQIA+ community, they gathered a shared goal to create art about and for humans. Their company advocates for a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment. sarAika movement collective’s mission is to help people find possibility and freedom within themselves. No matter the mediums in which they work – movement, dance, theater, music, voice, paint, lightpaint, poetry, AR technology – the themes of their work are rooted in the sense of what people desire or need to let go of. Emotions, opinions, and experiences are what art embodies, capturing vulnerability. When one witnesses vulnerable work, they feel something. The ability to relate to this kind of art increases one’s connection to their authentic self and allows us to connect to ourself and community. sarAika movement collective pursues this value of authenticity to bond their community. Their art is a form of activism documenting key issues and personal insights to highlight minority groups and underrepresented communities and create a safe space for reflection. As far as this society is going to be in need of this, sarAika will promote the longevity of art creating an impact for this society/communities. Thanks to the success of our performances and community events, we want to fund our collective in NYC in order to expand our artistic vision/methodology, inspiring our local young generations, promoting the longevity of art, strengthening the local artists community of artists, and creating an impact creating space for reflection and art as social action, giving voice and provide a safe place of expression to all our close communities such as immigrant, POC, lgbtqa+, building a bridge between artists and non-artists, breaking the concept of regular performance. Our last performances had a topical aspect, and it was wonderful to see the huge impact we made in our community and among non-artist audiences, spark their imagination, expand their knowledge, and create a space of self-reflection and personal identity. Those performed not only for a trained audience but being shared in various community events for under-represented communities, underserved population, child/seniors’ events and offering educational workshops for dancers and non-dancers, expanding the knowledge of contemporary dance and dance as social action to people which would have never meet that reality.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
All good and big projects are always facing difficulties in order to promote growth and success. Said so, talking about the beginning of sarAika, it was funded during pandemic years: this already makes clear that it was not a smooth road. However, surprisingly, in 2021-2022, NYC offered many platforms to diverse and rising new artists to present new works, so Sara and Aika had time to dig into some choreographic projects that define the beginning success of this movement collective.
Right now, the difficulties we are facing is the huge amount of work we are responsible off. Beginning a company during pandemic was challenging from some aspects, but one element at our favor was the generous amount of time we had to complete each task. Right now, the city is fully re-opened, the opportunities triplicated, the competition is getting higher and higher, and we had to come back to our regular jobs. This in addition to the fact that sarAika now is an established name now and working toward the success and growth of this company, makes us in front of multiple tasks of promotion, applications, development, education, creation that requires a team, but as for now we are only two to complete those tasks.
But as for now, all this hard work is bringing a positive answer from our followers, and our community is getting bigger, always receiving good feedback about how we are able to empower our community and inspire others, so at least we can relate to this good feedback to encourage ourselves to keep working hard.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
sarAika creates contemporary-conceptual dance works. What distinguished sarAika from others is their solid artistic statement: “Art is social action, and we make art about and for people. Our art is a form of activism, documenting key issues and topics, self-awareness topics, highlighting how they may change, and creating space for reflection. For this reason, the themes of our work are always based on the actual sensation of what people need in the moment or something we should let go from us. Sometimes, art makes people laugh, feel light, or reflect about themselves to find and remember something important or forgotten, like solidarity and unity.
Our mission is to help people find freedom and possibilities in themselves using our movements, words, and passion. Thus, achieving our goal that everyone can be authentic to themself, bringing comfort in togetherness, to ultimately grow the strength and bond our community. Creating art for and about people puts “others” first, deeply rooting our creative process in analysis of media/behaviors/movements/thoughts/symbolism/cognitive process of people which are representing, and it is fundamental to hear their opinion during and after the creative process. This is why sarAika is a movement collective because we deeply commit to maximize people’s artistry and abilities as collaborators & possibilities and self-discovery process for others, serving/empowering the community.
Our work ethic comes from our being and what we want to input in the dance community. We aim to offer the platform which we have been looking for, a safe place of growth and launch desired from our diverse communities. In addition, as representatives of underrepresented communities such as LGBTQIA+, immigrants, POC, and women, ensuring our professionals and all of our communities are respected, feel safe, and belong are essential having in our board the DEI officer Aika Takeshima to advocate and monitoring that our workflow and teamwork is based on the ethics of equity, diversity, and inclusion.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
One of the biggest pros of New York is the amplified amount of possibilities each emerging artist has and the huge availability of inspiration and collaboration between artists. Being an artist means belonging to a community of support& resources. One of the biggest cons of this city is the easy access to losing track of your real identity, mission, and work, within getting easily overwhelmed by work, opportunities, and tasks. Most recent quote we want to mention is “Start making your decisions from your talent instead from your desperation.”
Pricing:
- Workshop $20
- Class $15
- T-shirt $25
- Full evening-length show video $50
Contact Info:
- Website: https://saraikacreation.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saraikamovementcollective/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saraikamovementcollective
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzt6OwSe3GFvQwWKsLO02UA
Image Credits
BECCAVISION
