Anita “ Rokafella” Garcia

Artistic Director and Producer FCP

Hip-Hop dancer/choreographer Ana “Rokafella” Garcia was born in Spanish Harlem where she grew up with a strong Latin background. She participated in school recitals and community events. At the age of 16 she began going to clubs and started to do back up dancing for singers.

Her Hip-Hop dance style became her bread and butter when she began street performing with such crews such as The Transformers, The Breeze Team, and the New York City Float Committee. In ‘94 she ran into Kwikstep who urged her to audition for GhettOriginal- a Hip-Hop dance company. As a member, she became further exposed to the “old school” dance technique and history.

After experiencing international appreciation for Hip-Hop, she decided to offer classes back home to prevent it’s fading away. She has taught workshops at NYU, MIT, UMASS and Howard as well as neighborhood high schools and community centers. The non profit company she co founded with her husband, “Full Circle Prod”, serves the community with educational performances and mentorship programs.

Since the resurgence of breaking, locking and popping in the Hip-Hop mainstream, she’s been featured for her unique ability as a B girl in Fabolous’ “Holla back Youngin” and KRS One’s “Step into a World” rap and the Fox films “Brown Sugar”. She and her husband founded Full Circle Productions- a Hip-Hop collective of artists who understand the cultural value of these urban art forms. They presented “Soular Power’d” on Broadway’s New Victory Theater which received rave reviews, and was their Hip-Hop theater directorial debut.

Rokafella co-hosted an Internet radio show called 88 Hip-Hop, where she interviewed pioneers in her Hip-Hop History segment. In the past years she has been singing and rhyming with her band RPM, and had a supporting role in the independent film “On the Outs”. She wrote the introduction to Martha Cooper’s We B*Girls photo book and has been hired by the US Sate Department as a cultural envoy artist. She has judged breakin contests in Europe and South America , Puerto Rico and is producing on a docu/film about b girls. She believes Hip-hop was born to help urban youth get through the ups and downs of life with something to hold on to.

www.alltheladiessay.com
www.fullcirclesoul.com
www.myspace.com/larokasoul