““Jamie honors the diversity of her students in dance, which is a special pedagogical gift. Her strength, passion, and contagious energy helped empower our students not only as dancers and performers, but as humans too”
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Dance Bio
Born in Madison WI, Jamie Minkus' love affair with movement started when she became a competitive gymnast at the age of 10. Later in life, while earning her degree at the University of Wisconsin, she started dancing with a local Brazilian percussion troop, which prompted her studies in Brazilian folkloric movement. Her gymnastics background and affinity with Brazilian culture led her to train and teach the Brazilian martial art, capoeira, under the precise eye of Mestre Almiro Aquilino dos Santos. This was the spark that ignited her fire. Her capoeira studies introduced her to the larger world of Afro-Brazilian movement, particularly movements of the Orixas, which also opened her to the movements found in Afro-Cuban culture. Jamie went on to study Oricha movement in Havana, Cuba with members of the famous folkloric dance and music company, Raíces Profundas. Beyond this, she completed the Silvestre Technique contemporary dance intensive in Salvador, Brazil. Jamie continues to cultivate her craft in Portland OR where she studies with Donna Oefinger and had been a dancer in Ms. Oefinger’s Afro-Brazilan and Afro-Cuban dance company, Axé Didé, for over eight years. Jamie has also toured across the country with March Fourth! as an acrobat, dancer, capoeirista, and choreographer. Jamie is currrently the tour director and costume designer as well as a choreographer and performer in Oluyinka Akinjiola’s contemporary folklore dance company, "Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theater."
Jamie holds classes in both Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Cuban vernaculars, and has been an Artist-in-Residence at various schools and universities. Please contact her to bring her to your school, studio, or university.