Rokafella

Name: Anita “ROKAFELLA” Garcia
Nationality: American
Residence: New York, USA
Profession: Dancer, artistic director Full Circle Productions
Website: www.fullcirclesoul.com

Hip Hop dancer/choreographer Ana “ROKAFELLA” Garcia was born in Spanish Harlem where she grew up with a strong Latin background. She first participated in school recitals and community events and at the age of sixteen started going to clubs to do back up dancing for freestyle singers in the local NYC party scene.

Hip Hop dance became her career when she began street performing with such crews as The Transformers, The Breeze Team, and the New York City Float Committee. In 1994 she met Kwikstep who urged her to audition for GhettOriginal, a Hip Hop dance company. She was cast and became further exposed to “old school” dance technique.

After experiencing appreciation for Hip Hop dance abroad, Roka decided to offer classes back home to prevent it’s fading away. She has taught workshops at NYU and Howard University, as well as in neighborhood high schools and community centers. “Full Circle Productions,” the non-profit company she co-founded with her husband, Kwikstep, serves the community with educational performances and mentorship programs. This collective of artists presented “Soular Power’d” in Broadway’s New Victory Theater, receiving rave reviews,

Recently there has been a resurgence of breaking, locking, and popping in the Hip Hop mainstream and ROKAFELLA has appeared in a number of videos such as “Fabolous’” and “Holla back Youngin” featuring her unique ability as a B-Girl. She also co-hosted an Internet radio show called 88 Hip Hop, where she interviewed pioneers of Hip Hop History.

In the past few years, she has sung and rhymed with The Orphans, acted in the Universes’ “Slanguage”; performed at the Apollo in “We Got issues” and appeared in the independent film “On the Outs.” She’s also worked for artists Will Smith, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and Tito Puente, to name a few. Multitalented, she had one of her poems published in a Bronx poets’ anthology and also wrote the hard-hitting introduction to “We B*Girlz” the book by Martha Cooper and Nika Kramer about female breakers. In 2006, she organized “B-Girl Sit-downs” across the United States, as forums for Hip Hop activists to discuss the role of women in Hip Hop.

ROKA represents the positive image of a woman confident in both her Puerto Rican and Hip Hop cultures. She believes Hip Hop was born to help urban youth survive the ups and downs of life with something of their own to hold on to.