UNITY Festival Spotlight: Tafiya Bayah

July 2nd, 2012

MuchMusic and RapCity are proud to support this summer’s UNITY events taking place at Yonge and Dundas Square on July 14. Hosted by RapCity’s T-RexXx, the event will feature performances from dancers, beatboxers, spoken word artists and more. Each week this month we’ll feature one of UNITY’s many talented artists. This week we shine the spotlight on break dancer Tafiya Bayah.

UNITY Charity is an Arts Based Alternative Education Organization. UNITY engages youth 10 to 18 by implementing school and community programs helping youth positively express their stress and develop skills for success. UNITY empowers youth to make better choices as leaders, mentors and positive community role models leading to more productive citizens, safer schools, and healthier communities.

Tafiya Bayah, Dancer

Tafiya Itiaba-Bayah, also known as B-boy Anansi or Exzact, has been fortunate enough to be able to travel across North America to meet, practice with, and learn from various professional urban artists. This has allowed him to expand his views on living and dancing. Tafiya was ranked among the top four in several major competitions and was lucky enough to be a part of the creation of an amazing youth b-girl/ b-boy drop-in program at Yorkdale Mall.

Tafiya started volunteering for UNITY while in High School. After volunteering for over a year he was asked to do a performance during the summer representing UNITY Charity, and that’s when he started getting more involved in the organization as a young artist. Through UNITY he has had a kind of steady and supportive mentorship. This organization has given him some great people who have been able to mentor his dancing career and well as life in general. He has gone from volunteer, to artist, to artist educator, to Program Coordinator Assistant.

In the future he would like to continue traveling, competing, and learning about dancing. Everyone dances differently, so when he’ says “my dancing” he actually mean that he’s still learning about himself every day.

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Tags: UNITY