“I, like everybody I know, have gone through phases in my life where I have taken breaks…but I always return to dance. I like to remind myself, my students, and my colleagues, that it is ok to take breaks from anything that you are doing and explore other avenues.”
For the first time in five years, JUNTOS will not be traveling to Nicaragua. We are incredibly saddened that the country’s current conditions will not allow us to connect with long-time partner communities like NicaPhoto and Academia Nicaraguense de la Danza, but we are supporting all of our JUNTOS friends from afar.
Photo by Rob Best.
We are nevertheless thrilled to be traveling back to Guatemala in a few days, welcoming our guest emerging choreographer Tanya Chianese to the JUNTOS Family! Tanya is a Bay Area choreographer and the founder of ka·nei·see | collective, a company creating “vitalizing and accessible contemporary dance that promotes finding humor, appreciation, compassion, awareness, and celebration in our increasingly technological existence.” The name ka·nei·see was inspired by her last name pronounced in Italian, while also a play on the phrase “can I see.”
After attending college in Oklahoma, pursuing degrees in Modern Dance and Art History, Tanya settled in San Francisco based on her interest in the prevalent dance scene, as well as the proximity to her family in Southern California. Starting a company was one of her longtime dreams, yet she was not afraid to explore other avenues, personally and professionally, before founding ka·nei·see | collective in 2014.
Tanya’s career has demonstrated a true passion for teaching: she currently teaches up to 18 classes a week around the Bay Area. Tanya has taught outreach workshops through programs with Oklahoma City Ballet, New View Oklahoma, and served as the Outreach Coordinator for SF Trolley Dances’ Kids on Track Program. Her students range from ages three and up and have include university students, kids from low-income communities, visually impaired and blind individuals, as well as the elderly.
Tanya was recently featured in the SF Chronicle.
As a dance educator and an avid traveler, Tanya jumped on the opportunity to work with JUNTOS. One of her many interests in life is perspective: the ways in which we look at the world, and how it affects our psyche, how it connects us, and how it helps us empathize with people around us. She will be exploring this with the JUNTOS students as she sets a new work on them, incorporating her newfound love of urban street dance and her interest in the array of incredible birds found in Guatemala to create the piece entitled “Fledge ” which will serve as a metaphor for the constant growing and learning that happens throughout one’s life.
JUNTOS will be featuring Tanya on social media during our travels to Guatemala, as well as snippets of this new work. For now, take a look below at a project she is working on, and follow her company on Instagram here.
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ka·nei·see | collective presented the world premiere of Nevertheless, a collaboration with the Bay Area’s all-women Cat Call Choir this April: ‘Drawing inspiration from the feminist battle cry, “Nevertheless, she persisted,” Nevertheless surveys the field of gender-based harassment from the subtle to the violent, in a marriage of song and dance, comedy and horror.’
After an incredibly popular run of performances, and a call from Elizabeth Warren herself, ka·nei·see | collective and Cat Call Choir have decided to produce encore performances in the Spring of 2019. Take a look at the trailer, and stay tuned at www.kaneisee.org for more info!