Baksana Ensemble is a Dance & Live Music group based out of Portland, Oregon USA. Baksana presents live music and dance from Egypt, Turkey & the Balkans, vibrantly infused with their personal energy and stylizations. Baksana is a powerhouse of dance and musical talent. All dancers in Baksana are musicians as well, via finger cymbal percussion and a variety of melodic instrumentation.
Our mission: To connect audiences to a sense of celebration and excitement via the magical pairing of live music and dance. To tell stories and encourage people of all ages to journey through creativity. And to share our love of these particular dance and music styles.
Our “Why”: For most of the group, we are guests to these specific cultural art forms. We are often asked… Why do we find Raqs Sharqi, Turkish Oryental, and Balkan music and dance so special? Special enough to devote our creative lives to studying and performing it? One primary reason is that the relationship between dance and music is supremely expressive. The inherent energetic capacity is mesmerizing. The diversity of rhythms and flexibility of time reflect a fullness of experience. The incredible depth and expanse of Maquam and Tarab inspires infinite subtleties and indescribable sensations. Raqs Sharqi is quite romantic and poetic. The movements span a wide range of intricate nuance to bold athleticism. The dance is both very personal, and meant to be shared. Performance venues can be as small as the space between two tables, and as large as an opera house (theater). It can be casual or glamorous. It’s rich and long history has much to teach us and its modern evolutions bring “folkloric” to the future in truly vibrant ways. Balkan dance and music tell stories of community, employing multiple similar rhythmic and melodic qualities. It is very often by, with, and for the communities to celebrate themselves and each other – no performance needed, welcomed at nearly every and any occasion. Connecting hands to hands and hearts to hearts.
“America” is colonized land. Baksana calls Chinook Nation lands home. Many people have mixed heritage, and as Americans we have an amazing opportunity to appreciate cultural diversity all around us. Creating and performing mindfully and respectfully is always a top priority for us. Baksana members have all been devoted to the study of these dance and musical art forms for multiple decades… and the learning never stops. Many of us have BFAs/MFAs in various creative and performing arts. We also feel blessed to have found outstanding teachers in the Arabic Arts, as well as Turkish and Balkan genres (both in the U.S. and internationally) to guide us along the way. We dedicate our work to them, and to the vibrancy of the regions that originated and host these styles.
Danielle Elizabeth: Director, Dance, Percussion, Octave Mandolin, Vocals, Baglamas
Bevin Victoria: Dance, Percussion, Vocals
Carla Coelho: Dance, Percussion, Accordion, Vocals
Elise Morris: Dance, Percussion, Ocarina, Vocals
Evgeny Voevodin: Percussion, Tin Whistle, Vocals
Kaya Hellman: Percussion, Accordion, Melodica, Vocals
Makēda Gershenson: Dance, Percussion, Vocals
Morgan Fay: Dance, Percussion, Violin, Vocals
Ryan: Trombone, Percussion
(Percussion = Sagat/Finger Cymbals, Derbekki/Darbuka, Davul, Riq, Frame Drum, and more!)
Alumni members you may have seen in performance or heard on recordings include: Paul Evans (original music director & composer) Soprano Saxophone, Flutes, Melodica, Percussion. Josh Mellinger- percussion. Kristnh Freestone- percussion. Charles Pike- percussion. Leon Cotter- tenor sax. Jason Ramirez- percussion. Caroline Chapparo- tenor sax. Jonathan Roberts- trumpet, piano. and many many musical guests such as Eric Stern and Michael Beach.
OUR TEACHERS
Some of our teachers in the Arabic and Turkish styles of dance (and music) include Karim Nagi, Tito Sief, Reyhan Tuzsuz, Gigi Dilsah, Faisal Zedan, Rumen Shopov, Hany Morgan, Amel Tafsout, Mr. Ozgen
Our Fusion/American teachers include Rachel Brice, Suhalia Salimpour
GROUP FORMATION
The formation of Baksana was instigated by a spirited conversation early summer 2013 Between Danielle and Sol Crawford in the office of Studio Datura, about their shared love for the celebratory nature of the SF Bay Area Balkan music events of the early 2000s. The plan was hatched for Danielle to create a live music and dance group, local to the Portland area, that echoed those qualities of community, diversity, and passion. The desire was to make performances that were vibrant and accessible, expanding beyond the walls of a traditional theatrical dance performance. Busking and outdoor performance was a big part of the group’s beginnings.
The founding Baksana dancers originally met while participating in Rachel Brice’s Datura Project and launched their first season of performances with Rachel’s Datura Style vocabulary, which was founded on core structured improvisational concepts developed by Carolena Nericcio‘s FCBD® style. These concepts center around a style of “lead and follow” dance, where one dancer leads the group by cuing a set of movements for the rest of the group to follow. The order of the combinations is improvised, thus creating fresh and exciting performances on the spot! Within a year of the group’s formation, Baksana’s Dance Vocabulary quickly grew into its own set of original cued combinations, and full choreographies, often paired with dynamic finger cymbal compositions. Each Baksana dancer independently has decades of professional dance training in a variety of styles, adding unique diversity to the group. Free-improvisation is also a LARGE focus of Baksana, and thus our “style” and sets are constantly evolving with us.
Live Music was essential in Baksana’s vision right from the beginning, so Danielle immediately invited Paul Evans to help develop and direct the musical side of the project. Paul has been playing music for over 40 years, performing professionally for 30, across nearly all genres from Classical to Funk, Arabic, Balkan, Americana, Persian, you name it. Paul studied Jazz and Classical music at Cal State Long Beach and Arizona State University. It was while living in Arizona in the 90s that he was first introduced to Arabic music and dance at private Haflas (parties in the homes of Arabic families) where he was encouraged to play along with the classics and learn the Arabic ways of improvisation. Much of Baksana’s music consists of original compositions by Paul. Over time, other group members have contributed compositions as well, and the group has adapted some traditional music into their sets as well. Paul and Danielle together developed Baksana’s Finger Cymbal Written Notation.
baksanaensemble.com 