anais tadlaoui, dancer
Anais Tadlaoui is a French and Moroccan dancer who was born and raised in France until the age of ten. It is in France that she was first introduced to ballet and gymnastics. In 2001, she and her family moved to San Francisco, where she explored many types of dances such as salsa, jazz, and belly dance while continuing ballet. From her exploration, one type of dance truly caught her eye: Hip-Hop, about which she became deeply passionate. She immediately focused on Hip-Hop and also become familiar with Break-Dancing to expand her capacities in Hip-Hop. She has now been doing Hip-Hop for five years. Anais has used her passion and talents for dancing to create a community around dance and created the First Dance Team at her school. She also helped the community, as she performed a choreography she composed at a concert to contribute to a project that aimed to raise money to build a school for children in Senegal. Now, she is in the process of making a dance video where she concentrates on the fragmentation of movements and of the body. Her goal is to communicate her passion for dancing, particularly Hip-Hop, to others and to show the complexity and greatness of the body and its abilities to perform movements.
Being part of a dance company has always been her dream; being with other dancers who share her passion for dancing and putting on shows to communicate their art was everything she wanted. Becoming part of the Funk4Soul company is a dream come true. She is eager, excited and blissful to enter this new family whom she already loves..
KENDRA KATZ, dancer
Kendra began dancing at the age of 8. She was first captivated by the art of belly dance, but her love of dance soon developed to encompass many other forms, including jazz, ballet and hip-hop. After having spent a great deal of time and energy at the Santa Rosa dance center in the year 2000, Kendra, at age 12, continued to grow in Belly Dance and was accepted into the Suhaila Dance Company. During her time there, she taught both belly dance and hip-hop at the Suhaila Salimpour School of Dance, as well as travelling to the United States and Canada teaching and assisting with workshops. Kendra danced in India with the Velocity Circus at the Miss India Beauty Pageant.
Recently Kendra has been dancing on her own, teaching Belly Lock in Oakland and attending the Art Institute of California in San Francisco, where she is pursuing a degree web design and interactive media. Becoming a part of Funk4soul is an exciting opportunity for Kendra; to be a part of something that helps express artistic vision is always fulfilling, and being a part of a company always pushes dancers to new levels.
tasha jacobs, dancer
Tasha has been dancing most of her life. She started getting more serious about dance as a cheerleader at El Cerrito High School. She continued her training in dance in Hip Hop, Modern and Jazz during four years at Cal State Hayward, where she earned a BA in Psychology. Tasha joined Mystic Flava, a Buddhist Hip Hop Dance Collective, in 2000, and performed with Six Times Crazy, a Hip Hop group out of San Francisco, in 2004. She joined Sarah Bush Dance Project in 2006. Tasha has performed at the Sound Factory, Club Vertigo, Oakland's Paramount Theater, Rubye Skye, The Palace of Fine Arts, Masonic Auditorium, Glen Park Festivals, The Alice Arts Theater, PRIDE Parade 2003, 2004 & 2006, Hip Hop Festival III and IV, Dance Mission Theater, Shotwell studio, and many others. She loves dance and could not imagine her life with out it.
liz outlaw, dancer
Liz began her dance training at three years old. After a brief bout with "Crocodile Rock" in shiny green sequins, she embarked on 15 years of classical ballet training. Since then Liz has tapped, swung, salsaed, tangoed, jazzed, and hip hopped her way through life, stopping briefly to sleep and eat. Liz's most recent work includes performances with the Mama's Boyz, Sarah Bush Dance Project, and Freeplay Dance Crew of which she is currently a member.
And as for being part of a new family? Liz is overflowing with excitement, anxiety, energy and nerves. She feels as if she's on the verge of something great, something truly meaningful, but yet still amorphous. Liz looks forward to giving this new adventure some form.
miellette Mcfarlane, dancer
Miellette joined the hip-hop dance group Mystic Flavor when she was 13 years old. She immediately fell in love with the energy that everyone brought to practice every day, and it didn't take long for her to notice that her self-conifdence and maturity had dramatically grown. The next year, Miellette signed up for a hip-hop workshop with D.C. Productions. She had alot of fun meeting other young dancers, so she signed up for the same workshop the following year. Miellette is now a junior in high school, and after attending the Dance Production performance put on by her school, she was inspired to audition for the Jazz II class. She made the audition, and has now found a new passion for jazz and modern dance.
For Miellette, to be apart of this new Funk4Soul family means that she is being given a new opportunity to grow as a dancer along with beautiful people who share her same passion. This is the begining of another chapter in Miellette's life story, and she cannot wait to see what happens next!