Teaching Artists

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Our program would not be the same without the dedicated teaching staff who share their talents, artistry, and professional experiences with transcenDANCE Youth Arts Project.  We proudly introduce you to our teaching artist team……

RONALD DAVIS is a 21 year old who began dancing 5 years ago with the transcenDANCE Youth performing group, where his love for dance was nurtured. In the fall of 2010 continued his education at the San Diego’s City College after spending two years at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia PA, where he began perusing his B.F.A as a modern dance performance major. He plans returning in the fall semester of 2011.Ronald Davis trained and performed with the  CAC Repertory Dance Theatre, where he studied ballet, modern, and jazz. He has studied with several great artists such as; C. Anthony Cole, Kim-Bailey Bears, Andrew Pap, Eva Sbazo, Zane Booker, and many others. Ronald hopes to become a well known modern dancer, who’s known for his technical excellence.  Ronald has collaborated through out San Diego and has had various opportunities in contributing to create Hip Hop classes and Choreographed dances that incorporate various styles. Ronald’s style is a fusion of Afro-modern, hip-hop, contemporary, and an incorporation of the fall and release technique. He hopes to build a foundation that will prepare and propel him to be a profound dancer who everyone would love to work with.

SEIHA VOR has been working with transcenDANCE since the beginning. Seiha started out as a youth performer, graduated the program and is now one of our wonderful Hip- Hop teachers. He is a full-time dance instructor at King Chavez Preparatory, where he is the youngest teacher. Seiha has been a positive role model for many of his students, by teaching them about music, dance, and poetry. He is living his dream as a dance teacher, and is now patiently waiting to see what challenges he will take on next. “Life is dancing,” he says, “if we had a dance floor many will dance, Some will get mad when the rhythm changes, but life is changing all the time.  What kind of dancer are you?”

DRAZA JANSKY is a Transformative Movement Therapist with a BA in Dance/ Interdisciplinary Arts and a BS in Music Therapy. She has taught dance technique and therapeutic movement in a variety of education and wellness centers, including St. Louis University, Maryville University, and the Center of Creative Arts. Her dance theater pieces have been commissioned by several arts institutions, including the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and the St. Louis Art Museum.  Her dance film “Wings” has been screened at film festivals throughout North America and Europe. The word that best describes her life journey is “TranscenDance”!

ZARA JEFFREY began studying dance twelve years ago at the age of sixteen within a high school dance program.  She has studied in Ballet, Jazz, Modern, Musical Theater, Ballroom, Latin, Hip- Hop, Improvisational, Ethnic Dance and Music, and Yoga.  In 2002, after four years of intense study, she completed her AA Degree in Dance from Grossmont College.  Within this same year she began training with a local cutting edge dance company, Eveoke Dance Theater.  Being accepted into their “Professional Training Program”, she grew in her already existing classical training, learned Hip Hop Dance, and developed teaching skills through assisting in the youth classes.  However, her studies there continued for only one year so that she could go on to pursue her goals in dance at San Diego State University. Through the dance program at SDSU she received several performance opportunities in student, faculty, and University Dance Company shows.  In 2005 she completed her studies at SDSU receiving her BA in Dance.  As well as her study of classical dance, Zara has studied and performed ethnic styles of dance and music such as, Middle-Eastern, West African, Spanish, and Brazilian. Dance has been an enriching experience, transforming many avenues of her life.  Currently, she is working for the San Diego Artist’s Models Guild as an Art Model.  This experience has opened her up into the art world, posing for fine art, graphic art, sculpture, painting, and photography. Through this work she has created a discipline of stillness and focus within.  She has used these passed few years of stillness to manifest her place within the Dance and Art Community in San Diego, bringing her to transcedance Youth Arts Project.  Her ultimate goal is to heal lives through the process of movement and stillness.  She is honored to be part of a project like transcendance, and hopes to give as much to the youth, as she receives from the experience.

MARA HARRIS, Yoga Explorer / Yoga Coach – her offering of yoga and improv dance is inspired by an eclectic background in the movement arts (Tai Chi, Contact Improv Dance, African Dance, Rhythmic Gymnastics). Mara believes allowing the spirit to play by harmonizing mind, body and will through a unique blend of yogic styles. Her intention is to convey yoga as a sacred and advantageous means to delve into subtle aspects of mind, body and energy; she teaches the premise that when conditions of compassion and acknowledgement are present, transformation happens exponentially. Mara holds a B.A. from the University of Oregon and became a certified yoga teacher through the Nataraja Yoga and Meditation Center in San Diego. There she received training in Hatha Yoga-Sivananda Style and also completed their two-year Expert in Life Program. Mara was one of 25 yoga teachers selected in the first lineage of certified AcroYoga teachers in the United States, completing the AcroYoga Teacher Training in August 2006. Mara has taught yoga and AcroYoga in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego and has danced in India and Mexico. Mara began teaching yoga in 1999; she currently teaches at University of San Diego, Frogs-Club One in Mission Valley, Downtown San Diego Athletic Club, OB Namaste Yoga Center, The Studio at North Park, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, and provides individual one-on-one yoga instruction and is honored to serve in her second season as a Teaching Artist for the transcenDANCE Youth Arts Project using yoga/AcroYoga and Contact Improv dance as tools to train the youth.