AKA Project was created after some very special stage performances by pianist Karel Boehlee and dancer Asuka Watanabe. They’ve merged their love for dance and music into this wonderful program that you as a spectator will surely experience as breathtaking.
Asuka was born in Yokohama, Japan. At a very young age she already was attracted to dancing what made her later on travel to other continents. In 2005, she went to New York and there she studied at Joffrey Ballet School and Steps on Broadway. In 2006 she came to the Netherlands where she graduated from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. Since then she has danced with different projects, worked with various choreographers and dancers such as the former ballet master and dancer of Dutch Dance Theatre (Maurice Causey, Miguel Oliveila, Tessa Cooke), and continuing with Sanne Clifford, Anna Maria Suijkerbuijk, Mirella Simoncini.
As a dancer Asuka is very musical and loves to work with musicians a lot, thus she danced at the Rapenburg concert in Leiden (with Karel Boehlee, Theo de Jong, Hans van Oosterhout, Lodewijk van Gorp), and at the charity concert for Bali at Diligentia Theatre in The Hague. And in 2012, she danced solo in the Vondelpark Open Air Theatre. She dances very intuitive along with the music, expressing herself in a very sensitive way, graceful and enchanting. In addition to perform as a dancer she also works as a dance teacher. She gives classic ballet lessons and Modene dance lessons in various schools such as Amsterdam Dance Center, Ballet Studio Wassenaar, Heres Bodegraven, and Pier K, in Hoofddorp.
The AKA Project can be booked for your private or business event, for example as an interlude performance (four short performances of ten minutes) or as a full performance in a theatre setting (two sets of thirty minutes). It’s also possible to book the project with extra musicians and vocals.
Video
Watch these beautiful videos below, produced by John Twigt, Workstation-Amsterdam, for an impression of AKA Project:
Repertoir
Oiginals Karel Boehlee:
- Look behind the mountain
- Little Princess
- The Garden
- Impressions of Japan
- Boost the beat
Classic:
- Nocturne (Chopin)
- Etude (Chopin)
- Song without words (Mendelssohn)
- Flute Sonata (Bach)
Jazz:
- Fever (Ray Charles)
- Afro blue (Lizz Wright)
- Bouquet (Djavan)
- Bakerstreet (Gerry Rafferty)
- Ne me quitte pas (Jacques Brel)
- Voice (Hiromi)
Pop:
- Fields of Gold (Eva Cassidy)
- Back in my world (Alain Clark)
- Both sides now (Joni Mitchell)
- In the dark (Kate Miller-Heidke)
- The devil wears a suit (Kate Miller-Heidke)
- Kiss from a rose (Seal)
