

Today we’d like to introduce you to SarAika Movement Collective. Them and their team share their story with us below:
sarAika movement collective is a conceptual/contemporary dance company based in New York since 2021, funded by Aika Takeshima (Japan) and Sara Pizzi (Italy) both immigrants, queer, women, POC representative & supporter, multidisciplinary artists, dancer-choreographers. sarAika creates movement-based works, perform the works at theaters/both out&inside stages/private events/festivals/marches, create other companies’ works, do modeling for other artists, and teach our own dance classes. As we mentioned, we create/share art as a form of activism, documenting key issues and topics & self-awareness highlighting how we may change, creating space for reflection, most of all on topical subjects that include, empower and underline our community. In order to achieve our vision of art as a form of helping people to find more freedom & possibilities in themselves, we make art about and for humans, breaking the concept of standard performance creating collaborative, conceptual, interactive art experiences. Coming from a polyhedral education, we base our choreography on a unique form of contemporary dance that includes partnering, floor-work, improvisation skills, storytelling, conceptual art, and street style influences.
sarAika in the past, and definitely in the future, took part of many community programs events presenting performances, classes, workshops, events for underserved communities involving different undervalued communities of people such as bipoc, queer, immigrants, Harlem, Queens, Asian, etc. Helping, serving, giving voice to our communities is and will be always the mission of sarAika movement collective.
Past venues include: The Tank PRIDEFEST, 7MPR, Queensboro Dance Festival, MODArts, BAAD! The Bronx, NYC PRIDE, Japan Parade, Green Space, Dixon Place, The Craft, IKADA, JCAL, Movement Research, Dance Parade, SJAC, Creative Performances, Liberty Hall, Culture Lab LIC, Art on Site, Estia Festival, Salvatore LaRussa, The Brick, HERE, Queens Theater, Emerging Artists, TADA! Theater, Downtown Arts, and more.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Up front, sarAika 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.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
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.
Co-choreographer Aika Takeshima is certified DEI practitioner, studying for the last year, which strategy will apply best to implement the values of “diversity, inclusion, and equity” to our rehearsal process. Having in studio only: immigrant, poc, and queer women artists, this allow us to implement those studies in our rehearsal process, allowing us to collect datas and feedbacks in other to solidify a good DEI strategy for dancers for us, our collaborators, and for the dance community.
How do you define success?
Success for us is being able to keep achieving our goals while inspiring /supporting others – this through working with our artistic medium of contemporary/conceptual dance. We believe in dance and art in general. It raises individual self-confidence, leading to the understanding of diversity, opening the doors to eliminate prejudice and discrimination. Art has the power to move people from their heart, which is sometimes difficult for other mediums. A good example is the Bushwick in Brooklyn, NYC. The area used to be dangerous with many murders and robbers, but the curator Joe Ficalora whose father was murdered in the area started the Bushwick Collective in 2011, which is an open galleries of murals, and it changed the area. Now Bushwick is considered a place to go for tourists to enjoy many arts and cozy cafes/bars/shops. Said so, facing the topical subjects that are usually hard to face, creating works for it and when we get a comment that “Your work made me think about it.” is the most rewarding aspect for us as artists. In these last couple years, we felt that slowly we were able to create a community of individuals which were able to believe in themselves, their abilities, and values; we inspired and opened space for art to grow and expand. sarAika will promote the longevity of art creating an impact for this society/community. This is success for us, and we are going to keep working and promoting it for us and others.
Pricing:
- 2h workshop $20
- 1.30h company class $15
- Merch starting from $1
- private class starting from $30
- commission/collaboration my depend -> contact@saraikacreation.com with your bio and project info
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
@becca.vision