A pioneering female break dancer, Ana “Rokafella” Garcia was born in Spanish Harlem before moving to the Bronx. She began her professional dancing career in nightclubs as a background dancer for singers. Since then, Rokafella, as she is commonly known, has become a force in the New York City street dance community. After spending countless nights in clubs, dancing at neighborhood and school parties, and performing on New York City’s streets with the Breeze Team Transformers, she gravitated toward floor moves, studying to be a B-girl when few girls and women dared to compete with boys. A pioneer who has tested her skills on the streets, in the clubs, and on the stage, Rokafella mentors and inspires girls and women of all ages to master their skills in a form of dance still dominated by men. Fluent in countless dance styles, including breaking, uprocking, popping, locking, house, and salsa, Rokafella’s skills have earned her spots in music videos such as KRS-One’s “Step into a World” and Fabolous’s “Hollack Youngin,” as well as the Hollywood studio feature film Brown Sugar.
In 1996 Rokafella and husband Kwikstep co-founded Full Circle Productions, a non-profit dance theater company created as an alternative platform to incubate and produce their Hip Hop theater pieces. They have performed around the globe– most notably at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C. A singer, writer, poet, actor, and emcee—as well as a choreographer and dancer – Rokafella has showcased her talents in Soular Power’d, a
Hip Hop theater show that she also directed. The New York Times gave the show’s choreography rave reviews and made mention of Rokafella’s first-rate vocal ability. A short documentary on Rockafella’s life aired on PBS’s Visiones, a six–episode series highlighting the contributions of Latino arts and culture in the United States in the fall of 2004. She also appeared as a supporting actress in the critically acclaimed independent film On the Outs. The introductory writer to We B*Girlz, the first book to document explosion of female breakers around the world, Rokafella was also a judge at We B*Girlz Lincoln Center Out of Doors 25th Anniversary Breakin’ Event in 2006, which brought the phenomenon full circle in the city in which it was born.
Rokafella continues to travel the world, performing, teaching, training, judging competitions, and speaking on panels about social issues in the Hip Hop community. Funded by the Ford Foundation, Rokafella is currently working on a film documenting her out-reach to women of the breaking community in sic cities across the Unites States in 2006. Books such as Nuyoricans in the Hip Hop Zone, by Raquel Rivera, and Total Chaos, by Jeff Chang, acknowledge Rokafella’s accomplishments. She is also preparing an album of original songs, poetry, spoken word, and rhyme that will be released in conjunction with the first volume of her memoirs. “If I don’t break I don’t feel alive,” Rokafella states.
Vanessa Bahmani received a BA in Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Berkeley and is currently pursuing an MFA in Photography from the School of Visual Art, New York.
