Meet Us

Joana Harris Amaral has a Major in Mathematics graduated from the Science Faculty at the University of Porto. Besides this, she has always been connected to the Dance environment since very young. In 2003 she finished the IFI intensive courses dedicated for Fitness Instructors and later on in 2007 she initiates in an intensive Hip Hop Instructor Course organized by All About Dance Academy. Parallel to this experiences, she traveled to cities like London, New York, Spain and LA to take intensive classes at studios like: Pineapple, Peridance, Steps on Broadway, Debbie Reynolds, Millennium Dance Complex, Edge etc making her come back to her city charged with much more passion and inspiration that will eventually make her manifest in projects dedicated to Dance and Fashion. She is Director of clothing line for Dancers Loose Roots as well as Member and co-director of Back to Basics. She is also currently teaching Hip Hop and House at All About Dance Academy in Porto and Praxis Dance Studio.

Melissa discovers since very little an intrigant passion for Performing Arts in a place where there was no such active dance movement… this was a big problem for her. After graduating high school at 16 years old she decides to move to the main capital of the country with and start studying major in Dance and Musical Theatre. Throughout the years, she worked with her best friend and partner in “crime” Katiuska, co-founder of her crew and organization called FunkadelicCrew an Independent Group that’s been in the long extended mission of creating initiatives in favor of the culture. She has been honored to be the first Venezuelan woman to represent the country in the House Dancing category at Juste Debout and Hip Hop at Eurobattle 2010. This, to not -be taken for granted of- has inspired Melissa to continuing studying, investigating, dancing and traveling to know more about the culture and this way continue providing for the community creating a positive growing enviroment as consequence. Prior to those experiences, she moved to New York to continue the work of materializing her visions along side of sharing and becoming involve in positive actions she strongly believes and supports in the dance community and finally graduated in Dance at Peridance School. She has been blessed to teach workshops internationally including: New York, Colombia, Venezuela and Portugal and have been an international judge in renamed battles internationally. She is currently in Portugal working in projects like Back to Basics and independently. as well.

Vanessa Canto, 24 years old, native from Praia da Vitória, gave her first steps in the dance world while she was studying Economy at the Catholic Faculty in Porto. At that time, she went frequently to hip hop classes in diverse Academies and having formation with national talents like: Marco Ferreira, Vitor Fontes and Rita Spider and other Internationals like: Yeya, Joseph Go. Her curiosity for the Dance provoke an undeniably passion in her that resulted on traveling to London and New York assisting to studios like Pinneaple, Broadway Dance Center and Peridance, that by consequence made possible a bigger understanding and discovery for this art form. Following to finishing her studies in Economy, she finally makes the step of fully developing herself in the Dance and dedicate her time on it. She moves to New York to study Dance for two intensive years at the International Dance School Peridance learning and practicing daily in the diverse techniques such as: Tap, Ballet, Modern but always with her focus mainly in Hip hop and House. This experience in New York provided her the possibility to training intensively with icons such as: Elite Force, Brian Green, Ladies of Hip Hop, Mr Wiggles, Jazzy J, Future, Marjory Smart, Caleaf Sellers, Willie Estrada, YNOT and more. After devoting herself to this training, she decides to move back to Portugal and make the next step of elaborating projects basing on the experience and inspiration she gained in New York. She is co-director and dancer of the International Group FunkadelicCrew as well as member and co-director of Back To Basics, a new project that gives birth to a new proposal for the dance community. She has participated as Dancer and Choreographer of different International Dance events as well as competed and represented her style to the fullest. Her mission is through her Dance, share her knowledge and create opportunities for herself and others and develop herself in altruistic projects that embrace strong positive values for Dancers and Society in general.

Contact us:
essenciadance@gmail.com
918324555; 918576879; 912900692
Portuguese/Spanish/ English