Music | Movement | Culture | Joy
Monica is an educator, folk dancer, percussionist, independent researcher, and writer dedicated to movement arts that are of, by, and for the people.
Her area of specialty is Mediterranean dances and musical traditions, with a primary focus on Egyptian raqs baladi (رقص بلدي) and raqs sharqi (رقص شرقي) and Southern Italian tarantelle and other danze popolari. Each are highly localized and vernacular-driven art forms that are rooted in both popular entertainment and personal expression, and emerged within an often marginalized cultural context.
Monica's dance work is ancestral, community-oriented, and joyfully liberatory. As a guest in the cultures she moves within (even as a distant but decidedly diasporic member of each), she remains a lifelong learner.
Raised bicoastally between New York and California, Monica has been living and working in Oakland and San Francisco—traditional lands of the Ohlone people—since her teens. She holds a BA in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA in TESOL with a focus on Applied Linguistics and Adult Education Theory from San Francisco State University.
Monica draws inspiration from her own diverse roots, including her Abruzzese, Sicilian, Ticinese, Tunisian, Polish, and Ukrainian (Hutsul/Galician) ancestry—echoes of mid-20th century mass immigration shaped by punk rock, art, and activism are woven through her work.
She lives and works on unceded Ohlone Ramaytush land. Respect to elders, ancestors, and traditional caretakers of this place—past, present, emerging, and future. Pay your land tax
Photo is from Monica's ongoing Accidental Altars series, taken in 2023.
To separate these teachings and teachers and courses out from one another is a fools errand, but is how we do it today. These areas of study have all informed one another historically, culturally, politically, and for me, personally, as has my 'day job' and education work. Please see all of my studies, and any work that evolves out of them, as intertwined.
I have taken many, many (many!) Arab+ style dance workshops and classes regularly since I was 17. This is not a complete list of my instructors. I'm sad to say there are many I may have even forgotten, but that does not negate their importance on my development as a mover. I've also been a performer since my teens and worked with many bands and fellow artists in the days when we learned 'on the job', as well as hearing the stories of my grandfather about dancers he loved, and last but certainly not least, doing a lot of social dancing in Cairo kitchens and at Arab and Arab-American weddings!
+ lots of southern Italian and Italian-American social dances at weddings my whole life!
+ lots of Polish social dances at weddings!
+ I also grew up with regional Italian languages, not to mention hearing Polish and Ukrainian regularly
+
Coordinating crew
Co-owner and comms
Former medicine and herb garden intern, current fan and visitor to this special spot
Ongoing multigenerational doings and card slinging for and with family and friends. IYKYK.
Heritage Activists, Liberation Artists
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