A Virtual Visit: N.J. Dancers To Learn From Japanese Masters on International Dance Day
Japanese Dance Masters Have Strong Ties To Bergen County, New Jersey
Dance studios—like most arts-based businesses and communities in New Jersey—are on hiatus as society responds to the COVID-19 pandemic. But Ridgewood-based studio HeART in Motion is keeping its community intact through online instruction utilizing video conferencing software.
This Wednesday, April 29, on International Dance Day, HeART will connect its students and faculty with choreographers Tammy O’hara and Rika Higashino of Japan, reuniting the Japanese artists with the Bergen County studio online for a trans-continental master class that’s also available to other interested dancers around the country and around the world.
Tammy O’hara studied for many years with her mentor, Luigi, and teaches jazz at Luigi’s Jazz Center in New York City, in addition to her own Studio Tammy in Hadano, Japan. (Eugene Louis Faccuito, formerly of Woodcliff Lake, was internationally renowned for jazz dance technique and taught at the Manhattan-based center before his death at 90 in 2015.)
The Japanese choreographers share a love of jazz dance with HeART faculty member Ravah Daley, who is also a lifelong student of the great innovator, Luigi.
Along with HeART faculty and other community members, Daley, O’hara and Higashino all contribute choreography to the annual Ridgewood High School Jamboree, an annual fundraising music revue, in addition to teaching master classes at HeART during their visits.
Now blocked by COVID-19, all participants are uniting online while they are apart for this International Dance Day with an Adult Jazz Master Class at 6:45 p.m. on Wednesday, April 29.
The class will be hosted on ZOOM, a video conferencing application that will live stream in participants’ homes. (Interested participants should go here to register for class, or visit www.HeartinMotionStudio.com for a full schedule of online classes or more information. HeART’s first-class-free policy means that new students can participate in this class as a complimentary gift.)