About The Director & Choreographer
AMINA OLUSHOLA HECKSTALL
SUMMARY OF EXPERIENCES
- Invited To Senegal, West Africa July 1999, to teach Djembe dance classes and was invited again in 2001.
- Awarded The Sam and May Rudin Foundation Community Service Award in Arts in Education April 2001.
- Invited to perform at The Late Baba Olatunji’s Birthday and Benefit Concert at The Paramount Theater, April 2001.
- Awarded The New Neighbor’s Grant Award from The Citizens for New York for work with immigrants in response to 9/11, that bridged the gap between them and local residents, using the performing arts.
- Awarded The Building Blocks Award from The Citizens for New York, Fall of 2001, 2002, and 2003.
- Awarded the Better Neighborhood Award in 2010 from The Citizens Committee for New York for her community cultural arts workshop series created to inspire unity and respect for African cultures in African American communities.
- Has experience teaching dance to disabled, foster, and at-risk children.
- Television appearances include - Fox Five’s Good Day New York, NY 1, Neonissima’s “World Dance” Program, Salvatore Participator’s “Voices Visions”, The Black Journalist Awareness Program Kwanzaa Special, and several articles in The Queens Chronicle Newspaper.
- Amina was New York Newsday’s Person of The Week in April 2001, for which she was interviewed and given a photo session w/ staff photographer.
- Invited to travel to Guinea (all expenses paid, except flight) by Master Drummer, Fode Bangoura to study with the local Ballet Companies and perform at local gatherings, known as “Doundounba’s”. February 2005.
- Amina was selected to perform with a group of Master African artists at DanzAfrica Puerto Rico 2009 (photo from performance below).
Cultural Performing Arts Specialist, Director of Int'l African Cultural Arts Inc. (IACA), and Choreographer for Ballet International Africans, Amina Olushola Heckstall, is a dancer with twenty-nine years of dance training, performance, and choreography experience. Local companies, since her beginnings at the age of three, have sought after Amina as a dancer and choreographer.
Amina Heckstall is not an unfamiliar name in the East Coast African Dance Communities. Ms. Heckstall is also known for being an African American dancer who can embody the essence of the ancestors of Africa within her movements and choreography. Due to her many years of training in all forms of dance (with a focus on the cultural arts of the West African Diaspora) she has been able to cross cultural boundaries through her choreography and work within the community as well as with youth in various environments around the world.
Amina Heckstall is a Young Master, called, "Ballet International African" by some of Guinea's local company directors in 2005; asked to teach a class in traditional West African djembe dance while in Senegal for the first time on Babacar & Cheick M'Baye's "Going Home" Trip in 1999 and again in 2001, awarded The Sam and May Rudin Foundation Community Service Fellowship in Arts Education in 2001; A four time recipient of The Citizens For New York's Building Blocks and New Neighbors Grant, consecutively - there's is no doubt that she has found her path and persevered.
Amina has been a freelance dance instructor and a guest artist with the all-Guinean "Tokounou All-Abilities Dance Company" (a company with able bodied and disabled African dancers and drummers) with whom she has done a six-week residency in Florida teaching dance to at-risk/ foster care children and performing June, July, and August 2002.
In September of 2002 she went with Sidiki Conde (Director of Tokounou), Nikki Heckstall, and Bintu Camara (Of Les Percussions De Guinee) to Italy to perform in Rome and Grosseto for a organization of artists with disabilities, festival called, "La Farfala" (The Butterfly).
In October of 2002, Amina performed for the first time with the internationally known, all Guinea, African company Les Mervielle De Guinea African Ballet. She continues to perform with them when available, most recently in Boulder, Colorado August 2006.
In June of 2004, Amina did a 7-day concert production with M'Bemba Bangoura's, "G'Bassikolo Dancers And Drummers" in Toronto, Canada for Dance Dimensions.
In January/ February 2005 Amina traveled to Guinea with one of her Lead Drummers, Fode Bangoura, to study with The Ballet of Matam, and other local African Ballets in Conakry, Guinea West Africa.
During July 14th to 16th, 2005 Amina produced the first Annual African Dance and Drum Conference in Brooklyn, NY called, "Africa Meets African America Cultural Arts Festival". This has now become her dance company’s annual event.
July & August 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2006 film screenings for The African Film Festival featured performances by Les Mervielle De Guinee in Harlem and Brooklyn venues (guest artist, Amina Heckstall) and Ballet International Africans (at The Queens Museum of Art) throughout Queens, New York. In March of 2007, Amina Heckstall's Contemporary African dance branch of B.I.A. debuted, "Remember Me, Africa" at New Dance Group Theater, (NYC) and recently at The City Park Foundations Summer Concerts Outdoors July 2008. The group of versatile dancers are called, "AMINAIZM/ Emotions Danced".
Amina can most recently be seen dancing in Afro-Punk, European/ Nigerian artist, Wunmi's new video, "Crossover" from her album, "A.L.A. - African Living Abroad" (Video footage below).
She was also one of the top African artists that were selected to perform as a part of the annual DanzAfrica Puerto Rico 2009 Concerts in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico.(Video Footage below)
In her free time, Amina teaches children Jazz dance, African dance, song, drum, and folklore in various after school programs, dance schools, and community centers.
Teaching Philosophy
Amina believes that it is necessary to know the foundation of a dance in order to fully be able to understand and execute it properly. She also believes that:
"The Master Teacher is the master student for life, never to stop learning and studying because you can never learn enough. Those are the best instructors, open to learnING (many things), as well as teach.”"
African Dance is a healing tool she uses along with the healing power of the drums to uplift her students and inspire them to naturally move/dance from the spirit, their higher spirit.
This “International African” comes straight from the heart of African-America in hopes that all will understand, feel, learn, but most importantly be inspired to create change in their lives and the lives of others towards a better world.
