Meet the Teachers - Rokaya Mikhailenko

Under the Direction of Melanie LaJoie

Rokaya Mikhailenko has been a student of dance and music always because of her mother’s connections as a professional musician and god-mother’s as a professional dancer. Constantly exposed to a variety of world music, dance and theatre in addition to classical, her childhood consisted of never ending piano lessons and choir practices, early childhood gymnastics, tap, jazz and ballet.

She had her first Modern Dance performance at 14 at the Washington Centre for the Performing Arts in Olympia, WA and then and there decided this was her career. She focused her attention to Ballet and Modern complimented by music theory and ethnomusicology. In 1997 she was dancing with Dance Theatre NW regional professional company and was inspired to learn more and train harder.

While pursuing her BFA in dance at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA she began studying in earnest Arabic folk dance and flamenco. In 1999 she joined’ La Pena’, Flamenco group and’ Rojo el Khiyam’, Belly Dance troupe which gave special focus to Berber, Tunisian, Algerian and Gawahzee in addition to Tribal and Egyptian Beledi.

In the summer of 2000 she had the opportunity to relocate to Holland. There the post-modern movement is vibrant as well as tied to the best classical training available. She complimented her core training with gyrotonics, (white Cloud Studio, Marin Timm) flamenco (Vida Peral) and belly dance.

In Amsterdam she trained, danced, and performed with University of Cairo graduate in the field of Egyptian dance, Mahdi Emara, both his Magical East troupe and Beledi Project, for more than 3 years. At Azlan Music Centre she trained specifically in both zil patterning for dance and as an orchestral instrument. She had privates in Kurdish and Persian dance, performed and choreographed Gawahzee and Raqs Sharqi with performer SIWA. There were performances in the Egyptian community centre, at birthdays and weddings, as well as in theatres. A highlight was a performance at the Bloomen Festival, where the Egyptian prime minister was in attendance.

One of her 4 ½ years in Europe was spent in Andalucía, Spain. In Granada she took workshops from Moorish women, Rom and Spanish. She was able to take flamenco Intensives in the famous Albacin, Carmen Cuevas School, modern company class at DA.TE Danza and Imperial Method ballet. Once back in Amsterdam she continued with Mahdi Emara and with his approval developed a pedagogue for zil technique and patterning. She began teaching at the Griekse Taverna and performing with the Greek Orchestra. Serbian, Bosnian, Russian, Greeks and Turks all passed through and passed on knowledge of dance and music.

Rokaya returned to Eugene in 2004 to finish her degree in dance in the University of Oregon’s Professional Modern Dance program. Arriving in Orlando in 2006 she joined VOCI Modern Dance and is still with them. In 2006 and 2008 she was in Rome, Italy making dance film shorts with Wrong Alfredo Films that have shown in Salerno and Napoli, Italy; Granada and Barcelona, Spain. In 2009 she received her belly dance teaching certificate from A Magi where she teaches a weekly class and workshops.

Private classes & coaching available.

For more info: call 407-423-7269.