“Tehani is a powerhouse in a white sarong, a woman of many accomplishments, a scholar, [solo] world traveler, award-winning dancer, a feminist with strong opinions about many things – from human trafficking to dance as an art.  You might not know all of that from looking at her. . . But those other attributes. . . the serious devotion to her art form (which includes, most spectacularly, fire dancing) and to promoting the work of other artists – are hidden behind a sweetness that engulfs everyone around her. . . But Tehani isn’t shy, and, despite her slight stature (she is 5-foot-2 and it seems like a breeze might carry her away), she is fearless.”

~ Excerpt from “Tehani Stages Vaude-Nouveau” by John Farrell, Staff Writer & Arts Critic for the Press Telegram Long Beach

About Tehani

Jennifer Tehani Sarreal M.A. is a former world champion dancer, retired multidisciplinary performance artist (including live fire), dance ethnographer, lecturer, writer, applied anthropologist specializing in ethnographic methods and a multicultural social emotional arts (SEA) designer/facilitator dedicated to bringing shared humanity, empowerment and healing solidarity to the world through her work. She has independently presented, taught and performed in over a dozen countries.  

Her work in world performance art and education has been featured in various publications and broadcast media including The Press Telegram, The Orange County Register, OCWeekly, La Jornada (Mexico) and ABS-CBN (Philippines). Sarreal was nominated by MCC-CSULB for the Long Beach Arts Council's Distinguished Artist of the Year Award, danced at the global World March for Peace & Nonviolence (preceding prominent activists Dolores Huerta and Martin Sheen) and highlighted in San Pedro’s Random Lengths News “Change Agent Series” for her work as an activist. She was a former Board Member of the Cultural Alliance of Long Beach (CALB), the creator of the Artist’s Feast community micro-grant program and the founder/director of the “Artists for Action” showcase & community forum (a fiscally-sponsored project of Catalyst Network of Communities, 501c3). She also became a partner and awardee of the “Veterans in the Arts” California Arts Council grant through the Arts Council of Long Beach to serve the veteran community through her work.

Tehani’s performances and workshops have been held at museums, institutions, libraries and theaters around the world including: MoLAA (Museum of Latin American Art), the Skirball Museum of Los Angeles, A Window Between Worlds’ Survivors Art Circle, women’s survivor groups in Tamil Nadu (India), Rumpuree World Dance Studio (Thailand), the Multicultural Center/Office of Multicultural Affairs for California State University Long Beach and the Covarrubias Theater at UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) in Mexico City. She incorporates her background in Music (CSULB), Cultural Anthropology (CSULB), Social Emotional Arts (UCLArts & Healing), Applied Anthropology (Oregon State University), continuing study and professional experience in performance and education to facilitate programs that promote respectful cultural awareness & cultural competency that transform appropriating cultures to honoring them through the education and inherent wealth of multicultural sharing.

She is no stranger to the TIKI community and has performed for/fire danced with the Tikiyaki Orchestra, (the former) Smokin’ Menehunes, Ixtahuele (of Sweden), steel guitarist Kimo Delgado and has modeled/performed for Crazy Al Evan’s tiki events and promotions. From Bahooka to Don the Beachcomber to the Kontiki in Arizona, Tehani has hula’d, fire danced and modeled to bring her own signature blend of danger (fire and swords), world dance fusion and style to TIKI culture. Her most memorable run of shows was her production of “Vaude-Nouveau,” a variety showcase at Don the Beachcomber in Sunset Beach, CA which featured in the OC Weekly and was previewed by John Farrell at both the Press Telegram and Daily Breeze.

Jennifer Tehani Sarreal has created and presented full-day professional development workshops for K-12 educators at the Skirball Museum’s “Teaching Our World Through the Arts” series, was invited to lecture at the B.E.S.T. Arts Conference LB 2016 and has presented world dance educational programs at libraries in Los Angeles, Inland Empire and Orange counties for over a decade. She is particularly dedicated to building community, sharing source origin world performance arts and promoting healthy interpersonal & community dialogue through this work. Tehani was also ranked as a “Top Pro” on Thumbtack.com as an independent business in the top 3% of all working service providers for three consecutive years 2016-2018.

She is the creator of the Spirit Dance Project, a secular evidence-based somatic social emotional performance arts (SEPA) program centered in multicultural music/movement traditions, an exploration of global ethics and designed for self-regulation, de-escalation, stress management, trauma-specific/trauma-informed care and community building. These programs have been facilitated at the world-famous Wayfarer’s Chapel in Palos Verdes, the Michelle Obama Library in Long Beach, The Gateway in Los Angeles and wellness centers all over Southern California. She was accepted into the SOMA Somatic Movement Arts Festival as faculty to present her Spirit Dance & Drum program and international experience as a practitioner of world dance. In 2019, Tehani began facilitating Spirit Dance Project workshops to community based organizations, nonprofits and colleges in the Pacific Northwest including partnerships with: the Arts Center, Chemeketa Community College and Casa Latinos Unidos Corvallis.

Tehani holds a Master’s degree in Applied Anthropology (Oregon State University). Her research focuses on multidirectional ethnographic methods, the phenomenology of movement-induced trance and revisioning dance annotation through an ethnographic lens. She has created Ethnographic Dance Annotation (2022) as a visual template to accommodate broader culturally-informed definitions of dance. Jennifer Tehani Sarreal was a collaborator with the UpLift Lab OSU where her decolonizing research in dance anthropology challenged the ways in which medical anthropologists view and represent the body in motion.

Though she minored in ethnographic writing in graduate school, has professionally worked as a writer in the arts sphere and has copyedited for a multidisciplinary refereed journal, she intends to complete her second master’s degree (an MFA in-progress in Maryland, stylistically focused on embodied ethnography) after relocating. Sarreal is a member of the American Anthropological Association and has no active social media.

Fun (Random) Facts About Tehani

She rescues animals and still dreams of returning to more conservation work with wildlife one day. Sarreal is a member of the Women Who Make Room Circle at AROHO. In 2007, she was crowned the Queen of Miagao at the Salakayan Festival after helping raise $10K to build schools in the Philippines (which her performance piece, “Barrio Blind,” was based upon). She moonlit as a contributing writer and arts columnist for a South Bay newspaper in San Pedro, CA where she wrote exclusively on art, activism and (yes, when permitted by the editor) her dog.

Tehani LOVES Prince (the purple one, not any other) and is a massive fan. She’s also “unreasonably loud and proud” to be part Portuguese every four years (which may end now that CR7 is supposedly done with the World Cup, but she holds out hope). If you look hard enough, you’ll find her painted on an electrical box outside the courthouse in downtown Long Beach under the creative direction of a fellow former CALB board member and muralist, Jose Loza. She was trained by Roy Johns (of Cirque du Soleil/Cirque du Monde) how to dance on stilts and learned how to juggle from dear friend/world record holder Juggler David Cousin (she in turn taught him how to spin fire poi). Michael D McCarty is Tehani’s “world performance arts godfather” who first showed her the ropes of doing performance art as a business. He possesses the heartiest laugh in the world and also helped plan her first solo trek around the world.

Jennifer Tehani Sarreal is a Chronic Pain Warrior, but hates the term, which she finds highly problematic when referring to people (like herself) who experience chronic illness and pain daily. The community of fellow “warriors,” on the other hand, is absolutely lovely… despite the fact it hurts her heart that inescapable pain and chronic illness exist at all. More importantly, she believes in hope, she believes full recovery is possible for some and she believes that one day there will be a cure for all.

Writing and receiving her first grant at 18, she fully funded, produced, directed, choreographed and composed music for her first production, “sArrealism,” independently as a high school senior and still going strong well over 18 years later. She has an intermediate sailing certification (American Sailing Association) from the early 2000s, but skipper dreams are always on the horizon for Tehani… that invade her thoughts and slowly make their way into her “return to home beach” plans - once she figures out where that is and gets her health (read: strength) together again. Sailing is work!

Sarreal has never owned a vehicle with an automatic transmission (only manual stick shifts) and is a self-proclaimed “unreasonably proud PhD dropout” who inevitably returned to grad school later in life with very different objectives. She happily played saxophone and flute (then dabbled with piano and percussion) until she left the jazz conservatory as an undergrad. And seriously trained in ballroom way way wayyyy back when it was still “USABDA: USA Ballroom Dance Association” and not USA Dance.

In 2005, Tehani lived in the rainforests of Costa Rica (on the second floor of a shelter with only two walls, while it was still under construction… often with palm fronds and monkeys swaying inside, just a few feet away from her mosquito netted bed) where she patrolled the Caribbean coast as a volunteer with ANAI: a sea turtle conservation project in Cahuita National Park. She also worked as a contractor for the Micronesian Islander Community (headed by friend and colleague Jackie Leung), doing COVID-19 contact tracing during the coronavirus pandemic.

And, of course… “The Fluff!” Miss Bella Rene (a Silky Terrier-Pomeranian pup) is her whole world. They are a happy road tripping, sun chasing, ocean adventuring “pack of two!” :) A gift from her father, Tehani is unapologetic proclaiming that Bella Rene is the best thing that’s ever happened to her: true family and pack life rewilding in the world. They’ve lived and traveled the entire West Coast a few times over, always searching for the next big adventure together over mountain forests, coastal beach towns and ocean waves. Sarreal’s first sailboat (a 25-foot 1966 Wesco Coronado) was named the S.S. Bella Rene (with a doggie life jacket packed in the side berth). The Bella Promise was created in honor of her wonder pup (Miss Bella Rene) and their bond.

 

GALLERY (tap and hold for full view)