sarAika Movement Collective

sarAika movement collective is a New York–based contemporary dance collective founded by immigrant choreographers Sara Pizzi (Italy) and Aika Takeshima (Japan). Interculturality is the core of sarAika’s artistic identity: they use cultural difference as a creative tool, shaping choreography, collaboration, and leadership through shared authorship and lived intercultural experience.

Drawing from distinct cultural and physical lineages, sarAika develops physically rigorous, concept-driven work that combines structural clarity with sensorial depth. Their choreography transforms migration, identity, and cultural memory into embodied performance, activating the body as a site of exchange between global perspectives and local realities. Diversity is not presented as representation, but practiced as a method for expanding contemporary dance.

This intercultural approach also defines what sarAika offers beyond performance. The collective connects contemporary dancers globally through collaboration, festivals, exchanges, and cross-border projects. Since 2021, sarAika has performed widely in the U.S. and abroad, with commissions from IATI Theater, Et Alia Theater, Naoko Tosa (Kyoto University), Philip Baldwin (Stony Brook University) and Peter Schelfhout (University of Bridgeport), and The Museum of the City of New York, New York Fashion Week, among others. sarAika was a resident artist at Dance Base Yokohama during YPAM2022 (Yokohama International Performing Arts Meeting), Performance Project at University Settlement, Jamaica Arts Center and Spoke The Hub. sarAika’s choreography has been presented at venues including at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Judson Church, New York City Center, Movement Research, HERE Arts Center, Symphony Space, Queens Theatre, The Riverside Church, Dixon Place, The Chain Theatre, Mark DeGarmo Dance Salon, Arts On Site, The Tank, Triskelion Arts Theater, Peridance Studio, Ruth Page Center for the Arts (Chicago, IL), Detroit Film Theatre – Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) (Detroit, MI), and internationally in Sweden, Italy, and Japan. Their work was streamed on the Time Square billboard and on Channel 25 & CBS. sarAika yearly joins the NYC Japan & Dance Parades and Pride March, and founded in 2025 the Osaka International Contemporary Dance Festival, extending their mission to connect communities globally through dance.