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Director/Dancer/Arts Educator, has been sharing his love, joy and passion for movement and rhythm for over eight years. He is a dancer, choreographer and cultural ambassador. Originally from Tallahassee, Florida, he moved to Los Angeles in 1997. Since then he has taught, choreographed and performed locally at UCLA Royce Hall, Highways Performance Space, REDCAT Disney Hall, Alex Theater, Skirball Cultural Center, Ford Amphitheater, 24th Street Theater, UCLA Kaufman Theater, Nate Holden Performance Arts Center, Grand Performances California Plaza, Saint Josephs Ballet, Carolina Theater, Museum of Latin American Art, Fowler Museum, Armand Hammer Museum, L.A. Museum of Contemporary Art, King King Hollywood, Temple Bar, Zanzibar, Bordello Bar and The Purple Lounge at The Standard Hollywood just to name a few. ​

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Internationally, he has performed in Mexico, Cuba and Puerto Rico and has shared the stage with artists like Damien (Jr. Gong) Marley, Smokey Robinson, Lazaro Gallaraga, Nzingha Camara, Quetzal Guerrero and Aakon. This Florida native began his dance career in 1999 on the campus of UCLA. The UCLA African Arts Ensemble's West African dance troupe JOOBA, was the genesis of a his dance performance career. He fell in love with performing, African dance and drumming arts. In doing so, he began a journey that followed the west and central Africans across the Atlantic to the new world; first stop, Cuba.

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Omo Ashe, an Afro-Cuban performance Ensemble brought Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin culture to the center of his artistic focus from 1999-2001. In 2001 he was asked to join N'zingha Camara's West African dance company Le Ballet Kouman Kele. Continuing his journey further into African diasporic arts brought Emeka to Capoeira de Angola where he studied and performed with Pastina's Garden of Capoeira de Angola from 2000-2002. Finding Afro-Brazilian culture fascinating, he also studied and performed with two Brazilian dance companies Viver Brazil in 2003 and Ballet Folklorico do Brazil in 2004. ​

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In 2005 Emeka fell in love with salsa dance and music and became a principal dancer with Contra Tiempo an Urban Latin Dance Theater Company until 2008. Emeka is now the founder and director of LEsprit d'Afrique a Pan-African Performance Art Ensemble.

Emeka Simmons- Director

lespritdafrique@gmail.com | (408) 314-3151

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