Amina
Personal Note from Amina:
My Beginners Hip Hop Dance class is a safe environment for students with little to no experience in dance to feel comfortable, meet new friends, and have fun. They will learn simple hip hop moves and body isolations that they can use in social settings! My curriculum was developed using my own methods, as well as those from current and past assistant teachers. I take my job seriously and love the reward of seeing my students improve while having fun learning, just as I have fun teaching them!
My two main goals for my students are:
1) For my students to look so good after they finish the class, people want to know where they learned to dance.
2) For my students to enjoy the class enough to take another class with me or take Hip Hop Locking or Hip Hop Level 2 with one of our other friendly instructors!
General Bio:
Amina has performed at such venues as the Kennedy Center, has been a judge for local dance competitions, and her class has been featured on Fox 5 News. She has 21 years of training in dance and has been training and performing since early childhood in many kinds of dances. She loves to teach dance and has developed a fool proof method of teaching seemingly difficult steps to any level student including the slowest of beginners in a fun and safe environment.
Judging Experience:
Amina has been invited to be a judge at dance competitions including the Indian National Competition Boogie Woogie shown on Sony TV in India and America. (It’s an Indian Show similar in popularity and format to the American show “So You Think You Can Dance”.) She has also judged the Macdonald Dance Competition as well as the Muqabla 2008 Dance Competition and the Muqabla 2009 Competition. Contact Amina to apply to be in the next contest.
Performance:
Amina has performed at such prestigious venues such as the Kennedy Center, the World Bank, University of Maryland, Geroge Wasghington University, Image-in-Asian Television, as well as charity shows and cultural programs. She has also acted and danced bellydance in the Independent Film Terror in the Pharaoh’s Tomb. She performed bollywood dance in another Independent film called Sangamam (she’s listed on imdb.com for these movies). Currently she performs with a hip hop dance crew called Kaution Dance Crew (http://www.kautiondance.org). Contact Kaution Dance or contact Amina if you are interested in a group hip hop performance for your next event!
Dance Training & Certifications:
* CPR & AED Certified for Adults, Children, and Infants
* Zumba Certified (Zumba is a Latin fusion cardio dance)
* There are no certifications or universities for Hip Hop, Dance Hall, or Indian Dance, as these are all considered folk dances or street dances
* Amina has been attending all kinds of dance lessons and performing since the age of 3. As far as she knows, none of the classes she took or currently takes teach the same kind of curriculum. To read more about Amina’s Dance Training and see her childhood dancing photographs click here 
Teaching Experience:
Amina’s classes are small and students are encouraged to get to know each other in class as we also have club night out(s). Amina has been teaching since she was a teen as a volunteer and even in college as a volunteer. She has been professionally teaching now for 4 years and has been at the studio for almost 2 years. Amina is a writer, painter, designer and webmaster of this site, as well as dance performer, teacher, and choreographer.
Amina is a College Graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a double degree in Human Computer Interaction and Creative Writing as well as a double minor in communication design and multimedia authoring. In college she taught for one year and took part in the University’s performance group for 4 years.
Why I do This:
I went to college all set to have an office job . . .. . then I hurt my ankle and had a boot cast for 3 months. The most painful thing during my recovery was not being able to dance. For the first time in my life, I realized it was something I couldn’t live without. I’d taken many kinds of dance classes since I was a three-year old and was even on my college dance team, but took it all for granted. From then on, I decided to make less money to do what I loved—teaching dance!
My Inspiration:
As a teenager I was constantly going to nightclubs (I started going when I was 17!) and high school dances. So I knew what it was like to not know what to do when I was out in public freestyling. I felt so awkward when I first started going! I realized that the choreography I’d learned in my hip hop classes wasn’t going to do me any good at the clubs, the movements were usually too big to do in a small space. I figured out on my own how to dance at clubs by observing how other people danced when I went out. I never could find a class that actually taught how to do body isolations or simple hip hop moves to international music casually at clubs or parties and I felt there was a need for it. My classes are for those who want to build up their dance knowledge, confidence, and coordination and learn how to actually apply these moves in a club or party setting. And I mean casual dance that could even apply to dancing at a wedding or family party, not grinding or dirty dancing.
