Meet Jaja Vankova of RUR Alliance in Studio City

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jaja Vankova.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Jaja. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My sister, even though she is not a dancer, taught me how to dance first. She used to make up little choreographies for her school performances and I loved watching her rehearsals. My dream was to stand on the stage dancing like her.

Couple of years later, I joined a very small crew called Tizzians in Ceska Kamenice where I grew up. Ceska Kamenice is a very small town, with no dance knowledge at all. Later on, I joined a crew called Out Of Bounds when I moved to the capital city Prague of the Czech republic. That’s where I started to take dance more seriously. I trained in choreography and performance with Out Of Bounds and I studied freestyle and different kinds of styles by myself. I started to enter battles, as well as lead my own section in Out Of Bounds, where I was creating choreography on my students for theater shows and national competitions. At one point, we became the most successful dance crew in the Czech republic. When I was 18 years old, I moved to Los Angeles after meeting Phillip Chbeeb in the Czech republic twice at two different dance events, where he saw me freestyle, battle, choreograph, teach and present my own show. He really believes in me and my style and invited me to join IaMmE, after I have worked with him in Los Angeles on a project. Thanks to IaMmE becoming champs at America’s Best Dance Crew, I was able to receive work visa in America and start my career full out over here. The rest is history.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The biggest struggle was moving to a whole new country on the other side of the planet, not knowing anyone, and not having anybody speaking my language. Learning a whole new culture and whole new language. I did not speak English when I moved to America, and it took me about a year to even start having a regular conversation. Getting work visas and green card was one of the hardest tasks as well, building a dance career was a piece of cake compared to that 😀

Please tell us about RUR Alliance.
R.U.R. Alliance is as professional collective specializing in dance education, choreography, dance, music production, organization, directory, fashion, film and photography as well as training programs for dancers of all styles joined together on the base of support through collective growth and bond. It’s meant to build each other’s strengths and weaknesses in every direction of dance and beyond. R.U.R. is originally a book written in 1920 that stands for Rossum’s Universal Robots. It was written by a Czech writer Karel Capek. He and his brother Josef Capek are the creators of the word “robot”. It comes from Czech word “robota” which means hard work and “Rossum’s” comes from the word “rozum” which means wisdom. I felt an amazing connection, doing the robot style myself and it comes from my country, that I wanted to have a company that stands for exactly that – wisdom and hard work. This company teaches dancers in all the things that goes beyond dance and behind the scenes of this journey.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
I’ve had lots and lots of mentors throughout my life. My most important mentors and inspirations are my sister, Kata Trylcova, Allan Lemaja, Nobru, Henry Link, JRock, Tight Eyex, Boppin Andre, Madd Chadd, Slim Boogie, BDash, Beast, Nick DeMoura, Shaun Evaristo, The Electric Boogaloos, Toni Basil, Phillip Chbeeb and IaMmE.

Contact Info:

• Website: jajavankova.com
• Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
• Instagram: @jajavankova

Image Credit:
Alejandro Lambertini – RUR Alliance

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