Hidden Gems: Meet Evangeline Alva of Ederra Tutoring Company

Today we’d like to introduce you to Evangeline Alva.

Hi Evangeline, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Since my earliest memories, I always gravitated towards anything that had rhythm or melody that I didn’t already know. The tinkle- sound of coins in different countries (hello weighted quarters and thin-mint cents!). The intonations of the the traffic noise during peak rush-hour. Foreign words in cartoons and their new phonemes. My world was always surrounded by music and the arts as my dad was an singer, and so what began as a gravitational pull towards objects of my senses developed into my love for expression through the senses- dance.

I was born in Kuwait right after the first Gulf War in 1991 and moved to different countries around the Middle East as a child. I lived in India, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and when I was 13, my family moved to Long Beach, California.

Amidst all these transitions, and specifically because I was a child enamored by all the different sounds, tastes, smells, sights of these different cultures (this was in the 90s so mind you, pre-digital everything was an immersive experiential everything back then), I absorbed the wide variety of social traditions, beautiful forms of communication and connection, the wide variety of cultural and folklorical music, and with it, all the languages. The world was loud with colors that I could see, taste and FEEL, with rhythms that echoed those of the changing tides of the waves (we always lived near the ocean-edge), and that made sense to me. It was a world that was alive, always vibrating with the excitement of the next celebration, the next creation, the next season. It was a beautiful amalgamation of literally everything that fueled my days into more creation.

By the time I moved to the United States, I spoke 6 languages and was just stepping into the world of democratic freedom. It meant that I had this new found freedom to pursue my interest in the arts as a woman, which was a limitation in the cultures I lived in previously. I was surprised by the level of individuality and creativity that was the foundation of classroom curriculum in the United States – project-based activities, and extra-credit was where I bloomed because I had found a space to bring to life all my ideas of the arts and the sciences, and create works that brought me joy, humor, and immense pride because I now had the opportunity to show the interconnectedness of everything! I remember in high school, teaching myself the Indian classical dance “Bharatnatyam” from YouTube (thank you YouTube!) to express the personal journey of Siddhartha for my English class. So many countless memories of bringing to life, my ideas that had formed from my learnings as a consistent migrant and an addict of learning. I learned to play jazz music and combined my knowledge of Indian classical music, Arabic music, Western classical music and all my languages to create harmonic fusions in different languages. I felt I had tapped the gold mine of a new creation (in my teen years anyway).

I began dancing in college (USC), where I discovered Latin music rhythms that were so alive with complicated intertwinings of percussion, unfamiliar rise and falls, but most of all, unabashedly alive. Celebratory and expressive melodies always backed by a trustworthy, uplifting rhythm. There was so much cohesion that I could hear in the rhythms of salsa, son, timba, cha-cha and boleros that I felt I had now accessed a world of a loud expression, not loud as in “OUCH! My eardrums!” But loud as in – unapologetic for the space it took and the breadth it owned. Movement rooted in history, experiences of suffering AND celebration, echoes of chants and songs from cultures that were colonized. It amazed me that music had the power to provide me with millenia-spanning history that I so craved to experience, in my one lifetime.

I trained as a Latin ballroom dancer in my early years and taught at Latin dance festivals around North America. While in college, I also did fieldwork in which I worked as a research assistant documenting dying languages (I studied Linguistics and naturally- was obsessed with accessing older-than-my-thoughts wisdom from cultures and their correlating formation of their realities through their languages). I learned of ceremonial dances and spiritual folklore through song and story in the mountains of Taiwan and in the Amazon. I truly felt so nourished that… dance was the only form I found to bring to life all the expression of these cultures – music, rhythm, language, intent, stories, beliefs, expression. It felt so transient, yet so alive because I knew if I embodied the feeling of knowing and living these cultures, others could feel it too. We only partake in action as self-governing individuals when we experience a truth we believe in. That was my goal.

A few years into my 20s, I began training in Bellydance, Arabic folk dances from Egypt, Namibia, Morocco and Algeria, and Kathak – an Indian classical dance with a 5000 year history of Hindu mythology, While intense and enriching, it also fostered a curiosity of this connection between a cultural expression that surpasses war-time conflict, and is in fact, the essence that keeps the spirit alive through hardships. I was equally surprised by how much stronger my own connections to these cultures deepened as I now understood more “personally”, the people of these cultures, solely because I studied their cultural creation through the centuries. Cross-cultural interactions born out of this type of education breeds a sense of awe, respect, and reverance that allowed me to connect to the people of the cultures more, from a place of authenticity

Fast forward to present day – I educate, perform and compete in all of these dance genres, while also creating wedding choreography for the aforementioned cultures, with a PhD-level of knowledge that is the product of my deep nerdiness for these passions of mine.

My desire was always to teach from the source of creation of these cultural worlds of expression, connecting the human experience with its unique representation in each of these communities. In my pursuit, I traveled around the world studying these dances in their countries, including other folk dance genres – the Cuban Orishas, Moroccan Gnawa/ Sufi, Brazilian Samba and Carimbo, Indian folk dances of Khalbeliya and Lavani- the list is quite vast. In the efforts to become a true student of these art forms, I also stayed for extended periods of time in these places, mastering the languages, down to the very accents of the different regions of the countries, in order to be a true representative and teacher of these expressions I had fallen in love with.

In addition to teaching dance, I also teach 5 languages – Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, American Sign Language and French, at the University level, to truly allow my students to connect first-hand with these cultures through meaning, understanding and perspective.

Because these worlds bring so much meaningfulness in my life, I want to share that with others. There is a grace that comes from being unified in knowledge and the senses, which yields your most natural expression fueled by depth – both personal, and cultural. That is where I thrive as a cultural arts educator.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road, mostly because I didn’t have answers for my culture of origin on what my interests meant for my “life plan”. My family wanted me to be financially stable and educated and we had years of conflict in finding common ground. I also developed some chronic health issues that limited my physical mobility and would leave me unable to move for months at a time.

However, I believe in the power of the soul that knows how to feel alive, and so I navigated these struggles with as much grace and surrender, knowing that my aliveness was my answer, and so, it was.

We’ve been impressed with Ederra Tutoring Company, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
The word “Ederra” means “beautiful” in the Basque language (also one of the most unique languages I’m obsessed with). I firmly believe that every child is born with their own blueprint of who they’re meant to be in their lifetime, and my speciality lies in nurturing that curiosity and using it as a tool to learn languages.

I teach languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, ASL and French) through the arts, through movement, and through each of my students’ interests. I’ve trained actresses, dancers, athletes, singer-songwriters and even STEM-kids in learning and speaking different languages through the spark that lights them up – their talents/ skills. I’m told that I’m “the funniest tutor” and that my classes are enriching, stress-free, backed with historical+cultural relevance, and of-course, song and dance.

Language is a lived experience, not an intellectual one. It opens doors when your expression is understood, accepted and responded to, and vice-versa for the other.

I am most proud of the fact that I am now able to teach languages in the natural ways that the brain+body learn. I studied psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics and other fields of childhood education and learning models to fortify my personal experience with science. I fully believe that to be a successful “transmiter” of anything, you have to walk the paths of scientist and experiment. This is where I shine.

I’d like our readers to know that there is more than one way to learn a language, a dance, or access something entirely foreign. That living these experiences is a gift that I want to share with others, with a tried-and-tested path to mastering any language.

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
For anyone just starting out in any art form or developing a skill set – let the path of learning be the most joyful for you. It is the joy that sustains the despair and desire, but it also doubly works as a learning hack because in the physiology of the body, the experiences with intense emotions are the ones that remain as memory. Feel every time you are in awe, or impessed, or simply observing patterns in your learning. These small moments of attention create links in your system that over time, present their connectedness in the formation of your unique voice, your unique expression.

Let the path unfold and be committed to what makes you-you.

What I wish I knew when I was just starting out is to give myself the freedom to try ALL the tested space where my arts live (teaching, performing, lectures, etc) and allow myself the freedom to create my own from all these experiences.

Pricing:

• $175/hr

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @evadancer_official
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evangeline-alva-76363a91/