Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Pizzi and Aika Takeshima. Them and their team share their story with us below:
sarAika is a movement collective funded by Sara Pizzi & Aika Takeshima who are immigrants, activists, LGBTQA+, choreographers, and dancers. They met in 2017 while attending a dance program at the dance school Peridance Center in New York City. Soon, they felt their artistic mission and vision were pairing creatively beginning to create their own collaborative work throughout all 2020. The success of their art works, allowed them in 2021 to define their own collaborations under the name sarAika.
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?
Up front, sarAika was funded during pandemic years: this already makes clear that it was not a smooth road. However, surprisedly, in 2020 NYC offered many online platforms to present new works, so Sara and Aika had time to dig into the video work that define the beginning success of this movement collective. Also, this slow time for the arts allowed Sara and Aika to expand their own artistic vision, underlining it under an artistic statement, defining a unique choreographic method which was fundamental for the creation of their first evening length dance performance “L Train”. By the way, there were two big challenges during the creation of the first sarAika evening length dance work “L Train”.
First of all, there were too many things to consider, to make and to plan: social media promotion, to make posts, to make posters, creating websites, contacting people, texting everyone to come to the performance, etc. In addition, collecting money to pay for the rental space, dancers and future plans was a big deal. Telling people that sarAika is worthy to donate by just creating good work, is not enough. Plus, besides English grammar check, Sara and Aika had to do everything by themselves. This needed a lot of time and energy while they wished they could just focus on creating the work.
Secondly, creating an evenings length work managing five dancers during the harsh covid-19 situation, it was definitely a challenge. Often dancers notified them that they got positive to covid-19 at the last minute and many times the rehearsals happened through Zoom.
Among that, it was added the normal stress caused by performance pressure, some choreographic conflicts of opinion between Sara and Aika. The harsh reality that the money to fund sarAika projects are never enough and grants are not always accessible for them crushing Sara and Aika in front of the fact that sometimes they have so many good projects and wide vision but no fundings.
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, 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.
We strongly believe in the power of art. It raises individual self confidence, leading to the understanding of diversity, opening the doors to eliminate prejudice and discrimination. No matter one’s career, their being – emotions, opinions, and experiences – are expressed through art, which we capture to bring more truth to the world.”
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Aika: It is not a happy memory, but the stories of my parents’ experiences were the most important memories for me, which define who I am now. Many events interrupted my parents’ life, including their dreams, from a young age. My mother wanted to be a hairstylist and my father wanted to be an actor or boxer. But they couldn’t. Instead, my mother works as a cleaning lady with a low salary and my father became a Japanese mafia (called Yakuza). The collapse of the Bubble Economy in 1991 in Japan made my father’s business collapse and now he works from midnight to morning in a factory also with a low salary. Because of discrimination (my mother is from the discriminated area and my father is Korean. There were many anti-Korea groups at that time in Japan), being betrayed by friends or mentors and living in poverty, they had less education and less opportunities to pursue their dreams.
But I know that my mother is so fashionable even now at her age of 68, and I know my father’s physical ability. Therefore, I know that everyone has more possibilities and freedom than they think. I don’t want anyone to give up on what they want to do. I’m very insistent about this. I say “Don’t give up! Find a way to make it!” way too often.
Sara: Also this is not a happy memory, but without that comment, I would never pursue dance. I was six years old without any experience of idea about what dance means, ready to approach my first dance class. I had no big dreams to follow, path or passion to pursue or goal to achieve, I just wanted to dance. At the end of my first dance class I was the happiest kid ever, until the dance teacher came in front of me and my mom to share that in her opinion I should not keep dancing, I had no talent and It would just be a waste of money and time. I just wanted to dance and to be happy. Since then I’ve never stopped dancing, not to prove anything to my dance teacher, but to myself, that if you trust in your dream and you work everyday to achieve it, you can find happiness and resolution.
Pricing:
- Full Performance video premiere ” L Train” $50
- sarAika workshop class $20
- sarAika company class $10
- merch and artwork starting from $5 up to $50
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://saraikacreation.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_sarapizzi_/ | https://www.instagram.com/aikatakeshima/ | https://www.instagram.com/saraikamovementcollective/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sara.pizzi.7/ | https://www.facebook.com/aika.takeshima
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaraPizzi3 | https://twitter.com/AikaTakeshima
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrojXl1b6CortTwOIyKIvCA | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5In50yO4hEruZjC0jsh6Jw
Image Credits
Rebecca Marcela Oviatt (Becca Vision | @becca.vision)
David Rauch (@davidrauchphotos)
Tatiana Hochrein (@tatianadesignandphotography)
