Tanilee Amor Q & A: Samba and Afro-Latin Dancer
After working with Tanilee in graduate school, I learned she was a performer — and a super talented one! I made my way to San Francisco from Monterey to see her perform as soon as she had a show open to the public, rather than a private event. The performance was larger than life and a beautiful balance of high octane entertainment and artistry. I feel so lucky to have seen her perform and can’t wait to again.
Bio:
Tanilee Amor is founder, choreographer and artistic director of Amor Do Samba, an Afro-Latin dance company established in 2011.
Tanilee curates latin themed entertainment for the tech sector (Google, Yahoo, Genentech, HP, DropBox), sporting events (Superbowl City, Stanford Stadium), and provided PR and artist management services for San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, Center for Performing Arts, and Los Angeles Sacred Music festival.
Tanilee studied afro-latin dance at UCLA, and trains in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Uganda and Mexico. In Mexico she performed Samba, Cumbia and Afro-Merenge taking first place in Teatro de Cancun competition. A parallel career in social enterprise, she holds a Masters in Public Administration and International Management, from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
Q & A
Shauna Kelly: Would you give a little background on African-Peruvian and Samba dance or provide links to some good reading about it?
Tanilee Amor: I very much enjoyed the book Back Rythmns of Peru and recommend people consider it to learn more. I own it and still pick it up now and then for reference. Samba is much more well known than Afro Peruvian dance and I recommend looking into Afro Brazilian culture of Bahia, Brazil as that is the root of samba. Even the most well known type of Rio Style samba as we see in Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro is fundamentally influenced by Afro Brazilan culture.
SK: Your profile reads, “2018 Musa do Samba G.R.E.S. Renascer de Jacarepagua, Rio de Janiero, Carnaval.” What does that mean?
TA: In the tradition of samba, each school represents a neighborhood. Every year the schools showcase their neighborhood through carnaval. Part of that process is to select a top dancer or two to represent the samba school and neighborhood as a ‘muse’ for the samba school. They lead the entry into the parade with the rest of the continent and ‘bateria’, the drummers behind them.
In this case, and more frequently, several samba schools have opened up the opportunity for international samba dancers to participate as a ‘muse’. The costumes are very elaborate and extremely expensive. Many of the local dancers are actually much better qualified, however can not afford the price to become a musa. In the school and year that I participated, this particular samba school representing the favela a Jacarepagua was in particular need of funds and opened it up to several international sambitas which significantly supported the costs for their participation in carnaval on the Sambodromo da Marques de Sapucai, in Rio de Janeiro. The musas were hand picked by a brazilian “Reina de Bateria”, queen of the drums who has been leading samba in rio for many years. It was by far the greatest honor in my samba career and supported many others to participate in the parade as well. It’s every ala passists dream to be chosen as a Musa. When I began to study samba a decade ago, I would have never imagined I would parade in Rio de Janeiro as a Musa in Carnaval.
SK: How did you get into performing/dancing?
TA: I have been dancing and performing for my entire life. As a child I along with my sister and cousin used to choreograph and perform to Janet Jackson, and Andean tunes, pausing my aunt Charro’s salsa party for our pop and traditional Peruvian performances. This continued as I battled on the streets of San Jose at Great America as a teen, almost getting into a fight because my sister and I ‘outperformed’ the local kids and then my social dancing and performing continued as I danced at ‘raves’ in the 90s. Naturally, I taught dance at local community centers in the bay area and Los Angeles, and auditioned and was accepted to study afro latin dance at UCLA where I studied, Afro Brazilian and Afro Cuban, dance forms among others. I had been living and dancing Afro Peruvian dance in Lima, Peru for several years when I returned to San Francisco in hopes of continuing my Afro Peruvian dance studies at the Mission Center for Latino Arts and fell into samba. Once I took my first class, I never stopped and samba took over my life. That Friday class with Maisa Duke, a Brazilian teacher from Bahia, leading Energia do Samba dance company was my church and I went religiously. Although I had been paid to teach dance, it was with Energia do Samba where I first became a paid dancer, and the rest is history.
SK: What does your role as Artistic Director of Amor do Samba entail? What are the artistic choices/processes you enjoy most?
TA: The artistic choices made flows into every pore of my work and is the basis of the brand of my dance company. Amor do Samba means love of samba. I only pursue things that I love passionately. This is the basis for every choice I make as Artistic Director. It is everything from talent selection, to costumes, choreography, styling and photography. I’ve enjoyed every part of it, particularly early on making my own costumes myself. Tedious, time consuming, and painful, the end product is beautifully stunning and allows me to exercise my design passion. Choreography does the same thing, it is a visual representation of the music. Just as each bead is intentional of every rhinestone on a samba costume, every transition, every pose has a purpose and representation to the music or performance value for the audience. It’s fun, it’s creative, it’s tangible and feeds a creative need in my soul to express myself.
SK: What advice would you give to those aspiring to also start a dance company/business?
TA: There are many amazing dancers out there, that doesn’t mean you’re a great leader, innovative, competitive or a great business owner. Many dance out of passion and it’s important if you don’t have the qualities to lead a business against a highly competitive market, that you find a partner with that skill set to ensure your team performs regularly. I’d also recommend patience and grit. I believe these are virtues for every successful business. There have been many ups and downs, however, a decade long career is because I truly believe that dance is a beautiful gift to give to the world, and that’s kept me going for a decade despite challenges.
David Yu photography
SK: I imagine that for the spectators in the Bay Area, watching your dance performance is a cultural experience. Is that what your audiences say?
TA: I wish most of our audiences would say that. I do think that many of them believe that it is. For others however, to be realistic, they are just impressed with the beautiful women or men in scantily clad outfits and impressed with the feathers. Some people don’t understand the work it has taken to develop the art form we practice, nor the discipline required to perform athletically in the costumes. Mostly we are hired as a celebration and that is exactly what we do, we bring love and light into the world through our performances which is powerful, uplifting, positive, and high energy. It is also a reflection of feminine female power and that is also demonstrated in our performances. With that said, many of our clients do appreciate the cultural ties of our performances and really do understand the culture behind the performance with deep appreciation.
SK: One of the dancers in your company said, “Dance is the height of body-mind connection!” Would you elaborate on that?
TA: The dancer that said that is not only a yoga teacher, but generally a very spiritual woman who grew up in Latin America around music and dance her whole life. I can’t speak for her, however, for me I would imagine it’s related to being present in dance and performing. Dance is extremely technical so on some level you must bring your head game to the body and connect and flow within both.
SK: In a video introduction of your company you say, “I don’t think there is any other way to be more in the moment than dancing.” Would you elaborate on this and the other reasons you love performing?
TA: Dance is my church. Dance is my present, dance is my escape. Dance is what I do when I am all alone at home cooking, dance is my way of processing life and yet at the same time forgetting life. When you dance, especially with drums when you dance with your heart and your feelings (not your head, not technical), then you are present. It is almost a form of meditation in the sense that you’re in that moment in time with the musicians or the team, you are present and nowhere else.
I also love performing because of the audience. I think Lady Gaga said it best when they said “It’s the applause, applause, applause, I live for the applause.” It’s the energy on stage or a performance space that you share with the audience that is so magical. It is something I will miss once I stop performing, and there is nothing like it. I will forever be grateful for those moments on stage.
SK: Amor do Samba’s principal dancers are “…confident, beautiful women who love to share their joy with the world.” I can’t imagine a better purpose than to share one’s joy with the world. Would you say something more about that idea/philosophy and how it is accomplished through performance?
TA: It’s two fold. First each music and song has an ethos. Be happy, be sad, be mad. Samba sings the songs of the afro brazilian communities in the favelas of brazil. It’s not an easy life but art gives us a way of expressing our love of life and joy. For me samba is pura alegria, pure joy. This is what samba brings to me and you can see it when someone is dancing with joy. They are in their bodies and they are in the moment, they are not in their head thinking about the moves, they are sharing their life with that of our audiences, their joy with that of our audience, we are sharing our light with those around us in the form of dance. This is what we do, and for that reason we celebrate weddings, birthdays, graduations, holiday parties you name it.
SK: What do you do to build energy before you step onto stage?
TA: It starts at home actually. We show up ‘make up ready’, so the process begins as we glam ourselves up for a performance. It’s a journey. We travel to the destination and every event is different. Our team has been performing together for a long time and our bonds connect as we change and get ready for the show together catching up on each other’s lives.
Depending on the space, we discuss transitions or utilization of space, or at times run through any choreo changes. When it’s a really big show we come together for some word of positivity and inspiration before we go out and rock their worlds. When performing to live music, this brings an entirely different energy to the stage. As artists working together for so many years we have had moments of complete telepathy among ourselves and the musicians and that energy is magical on stage.
To perform is an amazing experience and feeling. One that I became addicted to and which fueled my passion to start my dance company and which guaranteed I would be performing all the time. I love to perform, and that energy between the audience and a performer is a unique moment in time. I’ve had moments where I have no memory at all of what I did, just a memory of the audience screaming and going crazy. I remember the audience, not myself. That is a performance with amazing energy.
Originally published at https://www.framedperformances.com on October 22, 2020.
