We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aika Takeshima a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Aika thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

Since I do not only dance, but also create dance works, teach dance class and spread DEI(diversity, equity & inclusion) culture and method, actually I learned those from many experiences. Even if I pick up only as a dancer, my strong floor-work movements came from my three years of experience in Judo, a Japanese martial art. (I have a black belt and won the first prize in the city.) Also another three years of experience in field track as a shot put & discus throw player made my strong arms to support my body on the floor. My dance education started from hip hop and locking dance and I started jazz and ballet at the age of 22 years old. I also learned dance theater, which emphasizes more on emotion. All of these made me how I dance. I also have been in many groups/experiences, such as rich, poor, factory worker, server, chef, street dancer, jazz dancer, contemporary dancer, immigrant, queer, and so on. There were so many struggles that I couldn’t afford the education programs I wanted in the past, which I think was the factor that could speed up my learning process to build my career. But at the same time, all these experiences made me realize how valuable life is, how difficult something is to some, and how easy it is to others, how little I know about others, etc. And as a creator, the richness in life is the foundation. Since you experienced a lot, you can make works that are full of meaning, perspective and complexity in stories. If I’m allowed to say one more thing, I wish I had more socializing skills since I was young!

Aika, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I strongly believe in the power of art, being inclusive and collaborative. That’s why, my/our creation is not just movements, but with a distinct taste for interdisciplinary collaboration, which I think makes us apart from other dance works. As an immigrant from Japan with a partner who is also an immigrant from Italy, living in the U.S, we are fortunate that we can have opportunities to work with diverse creatives. Each of them brings a new perspective to us and we innovate with their perspectives and ours.

Also, I/we make art about and for people. Art raises individual self confidence, leading to the understanding of diversity, opening the doors to eliminate prejudice and discrimination. As a spokeswoman of queer and immigrant artist community, from a poor family in a small town, I know everyone has much more freedom and possibilities than they think, they just don’t know. I want people to be aware of it.
For this reason, themes of my/our works 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.

For example, our newest work “DOUBLE BIND” is to empower the women community. It focuses on translating voices into movement from those who identify as or resonate with the qualities of being a woman, Double Bind delivers a universal message of equity, diversity, inclusivity, and human connection. The process has consisted of independent research, and interviewing folks from NYC, Italy, and Japan, to acquire a full scope of the cultural experience that women share in sarAika movement collective’s broad community. This allowed them to create an organic script that underlines and empowers women’s voices, in reference to the cascading events and harsh rhetoric that the women’s rights movement has faced over the past few years all over the world.

We also provide contemporary dance classes sharing our discoveries and analysis of the use of the body. Our class opens your joints in your body, give you the floor-work foundation, awaken self awareness of the relationship between body and space.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Sometimes I feel there is a wall between artists and non-artists. Artists want people to enjoy the arts, but some or many people don’t know how to enjoy the arts. Therefore, if society can work on removing this wall by showing how to enjoy arts or sharing art history, more people can enjoy arts and more artists have more opportunities that their works are seen or even sold. And actually that is my biggest dream to make an “Art Village” where there is no wall between people, we make the bridge between artists and non-artists, anyone can come to see art galleries, rehearsals, creation process while they are enjoying a cup of coffee. So yes, there will be a cafe/restaurant too. There will also be a theater. It is a village where many artists from the world inspire each other, learn from other artists or from our programs and people can find how to enjoy arts through our programs. I want to spread the joy of art.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I could know about lighting in general. Lighting is very important visually on a stage. It can make a magic. But now as a choreographer, I have to tell the lighting cues to a technician, and it is not easy for me to understand how each light (among so many) works. I have seen so much great lighting in Japan, so I thought it was not that difficult to reproduce those lighting, but I found that the lighting I saw in Japan was actually very complicated or the theater need a special lights. So now I sometimes struggle to find the best lights and I think having more knowledge in lighting would help me so much.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://aikatakeshima.com https://saraikacreation.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aikatakeshima/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aika.takeshima
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5In50yO4hEruZjC0jsh6Jw

Image Credits
BeccaVision