We were lucky to catch up with SarAika Movement collective recently and have shared our conversation below.

SarAika, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

The most meaningful project we’ve worked on is “You Don’t Have To Love Me Just Accept Me”, one of our most well known repertoire work,which has been presented about 20 times in a year throughout NYC and New Jersey, that underline the importance of the relationship between DIFFERENCE&ACCEPTANCE. The reason why this is the most meaningful project is because sarAika is dedicated to making art for and about humans, our art is a form of activism, documenting key issues and topics, highlighting how they may change, creating space for reflection. And this work is made by our reflection on BLM and Stop Asian Hate in 2020. We created this work under commission of 7MPR for the event of “Stop Asian Hate and Any Hate” organized by Jiali Wang, performed at Art on Site NYC on August 29th 2021. For the movements, we focused on using many of our differences between the creators Sara & Aika, such as height (154cm & 175cm), personality (tendency to put stress in/out), movement quality (detailed & wild), culture (Italy & Japan), age (12 years difference), and so on. For the story, we expressed that we can annoy each other by our own character, but we can also collaborate well because there are differences in us and help each other when one is hurt. Through this work, we wanted to say we acknowledge that we cannot agree with everything or everyone. But we have to respect each other’s existence or boundaries. We cannot hurt people. Hurting someone is meaningless. Accepting everyone’s existence is called “coexisting”. The message In this work is: “WE ARE TOTALLY DIFFERENT, AND THIS IS OUR POWER AND BEST QUALITY, ACCEPTANCE FOR DIVERSITY AND EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN IS WHAT MAKES PROGRESS AND BEAUTY”. After the premier, we have kept getting a lot of appreciation from the audience, and thanks to the success of this work, saraika has been able to grew a lot in these last 2 years, performing for more than 40 events in NY & NJ, premiering in Manhattan the OffOff Broadway evening length work “L TRAIN”.

SarAika, 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?

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, story telling, 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! Thetaer, Downtown Arts, and more.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

As we mentioned, we are immigrants, women, queer and POC representative & supporter living in the United States: what underrepresented people experience is what we experience on our skin everyday. We want to make this society more livable for everyone, especially our community, to spread awareness on topical subjects, and empower minorities. That is why we are dedicated to making art for and about humans, and creating art as social action. There are many ways to deliver stories and contribute to society: We chose to use our body to deliver stories, messages and contribute to this society.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

We believe in art. 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 murderd in the area started the Bushwick Collective in 2011, which is a open galleirs of murrals, 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 expan. sarAika will promote the longevity of art creating an impact for this society/community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://saraikacreation.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saraikamovementcollective/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saraikamovementcollective
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-pizzi-a514281a6/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzt6OwSe3GFvQwWKsLO02UA

Image Credits
Yellow and Blue/Red ph: BECCAVISION Skirts; LIZ SCHNEIDER COHEN PHOTOS B&W + red strings: Hannah Rozelle