Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexandra Dovzak.
Hi Alexandra, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I have been dancing since I had the ability to walk. I started in ballet, joined a Slavic Folk Dance group called Uzori, where I met several of the girls I dance with today. Over the years I picked up several other genres of dance, specifically Broadway jazz as I started my Musical Theatre career and in 2021 I started belly dancing professionally. Within the group Uzori, we all studied several different Slavic folk dance styles, including Russka Roma dancing. This particular style was so intriguing to me that I began researching it and studying it on my own in my free time. I became a gypsy dance soloist with Uzori, and continued to hold a passion for this style of dance while beginning to work on creating choreographies of my own for Uzori. Sometime around 2022 Uzori “disbanded”. (I say disbanded in quotation marks because they do still sometimes perform on rare occasions but do not meet regularly for rehearsals or participate in any of the old festivals they used to perform in.) After about a year the girls from Uzori, who are still good friends of mine (and one of them being my biological sister) kept telling me how much they missed dancing and wished we could start performing again. This was sort of the push that led me to start Romani Roses.
We originally formed just to give ourselves the opportunity to dance again in the genre that was close to our hearts and to our culture. We performed mostly at Slavic cultural events like Maslenitsa (organized by the Houston Slavic Association). It wasn’t until a good friend and dance mentor asked about auditioning at the Texas Renaissance Festival that I ever even considered that. We signed up, put together a short audition to display our unique skill, talent, costumes and invigorating energy, and we auditioned for not only the entertainment committee but in front of all of the individual actors there to audition to be a part of the TRF cast. They were all great participants in our audition, clapping and reacting. The committee recognized our professionalism and a few months later we got a phone call from the people with the Red Lion Tavern, and the rest is history.
This troupe was founded in late 2023 and now is going into its third year at the Texas Renaissance Festival, and we are extremely excited to be able to perform for the TRF crowd and for all of our fans and followers that we’ve quickly accumulated. Some people have been following our performances since we were in Uzori, and some discovered us at TRF just this past year but all of them mean the world to us because they are the ones who allow us to share our culture, our music, our dancing with the world. We also now perform at The San Antonio Folk Dance Festival, and have had a few shows over at the historic River Oaks Theatre, and we aspire to one day be able to help to create and host a Houston Romani Festival open to any other Romani and gypsy dancers and to be able to offer classes and workshops to those who might be interested in learning this beautiful genre of dance. We have expanded our reach from just Russka Roma by welcoming in other dancers who represent different parts of the world and we have started to include Balkan styles, Spanish styles, Portuguese, and we are forever learning and growing in our knowledge of the vast many styles there is of Romani dancing.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Oh absolutely not. There were many a struggle. I don’t want to cause drama or put any names out there but I personally have had several people who hold an extreme dislike for me because I refuse to settle. I have been told that I “don’t know my place” within an established group and honestly they were right, my place has never been at the bottom of the totem pole. I’ve always known my place is at the top in a very creative position, and I was even encouraged by a former leader of a group I know longer work with to pursue my own passions and “Do your own thing”. People have judged that I wouldn’t be successful or that I didn’t know what I was doing, or wasn’t “educated” enough to put on my own show. I have time and time again tried to change myself to fit into a mold somewhere else because I so badly wanted to be a part of a creative community that consistently performed and it severely affected my mental and physical health. I dealt with depression and severe anxiety and paranoia to the point where i was hearing conversations that didn’t happen, I always felt like everyone was against me. It took me far too long to realize that if I wanted a group of creative performers who worked and hung out together and had a true family like feel, it was something I was going to have to create for myself and to establish an environment where everyone has genuine love and respect for each other, and not the backstabbing trash talking vibes of we bad mouth whoever happens to not be here right now. I thought that’s just how theatre and dance environments were, but Romani Roses is living proof that it does not have to be that way. I have also had to fight for fair pay for my performers and still to this day have to fight this and explain hat $50 per dancer simply doesn’t cut it. Even $100 per dancer for one show is like the bare minimum. People don’t seem to understand that performers have bills to pay too, and you don’t just pay for the performance, you pay for travel time, gas, hair products, makeup, training time, and let me just tell you my costume and the jewelry I’m wearing alone adds up to more than what most people pay me per gig. I’d say dealing with haters, having people judge me for my age, mental health issues and the constant fight for proper pay are the biggest struggles, along with fighting against the mainstream media offensive stereotypes people have given gypsies and the oversexualization of them.
Some of the dancers that have been beside me, and still perform with me, throughout my entire life and journey and have witnessed many different seasons of my life, and function as a part of my support group are Nika Dovzak, Darya Mangupli, and Victoria Nadvoretskaya. Romani Roses would not exist without them. And of course, there is Robert Dovzak, my father, and our number one supporter through helping us set up our tech, catering food for us when we perform, taking photos and videos of our performances, traveling with us to San Antonio just to vide our performances, we see all of the work you do for us and appreciate it very much. Robert is a very well loved honorable member of Romani Roses.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I personally am known for doing lost of different styles of dancing. I of course have my show, the Romani Roses that I produce, but I am also a professional belly dancer, I dance Slavic folk dance styles, I dance with Turath Folkaholic Dance Company that does Dabke dancing and specializes in wedding Zaffes, I dance with the Almas dancers doing Persian folkloric dancing. I also do fire dancing, dabble in bollywood, I dance broadway jazz and have taught dance classes and choreographed several musicals. I directed a musical with the University of Houston’s Musical Theatre Organization just a few months ago that I also choreographed and played a lead in when one of our leads dropped out. I am the Deputy Director and Movement Director for Footlight Players as well as a performer within the troupe. I am also an active Real Estate Agent with Walzel Properties but the majority of my time (and income) stems from dance. It is a huge part of my world and is what I am most passionate about. I also enjoy acting in musicals when I can and doing singing gigs but overall dance, and especially folkloric dance has my heart. I am most proud of my troupe the Romani Roses because not only is it an incredibly tight knit group of friends that is incredibly supportive of each other and makes every rehearsal super fun and memorable, but they are such a unique and exquisite group of performers and I can confidently say you will never find anything that compares to this group. We are so unique and so niche and our costumes are very well put together and very professional and so is our choreography that you can tell when you see this group this isn’t just something they do for “funsies”. This is their passion and their livelihood. And I am also proud of how far it has come as something that was truly mine. The work and effort I have put into he behind the scenes and the production of this company and the show we present at TRF is insane especially since it doesn’t feel like work to me, it feels like fun, like play. I have been told it is crazy to see the way I hear music and choreography just kind of starts popping into my brain and coming out of my body and watching me do choreography on the spot and piece something together is just an insane experience and I’m like, “You mean everybody doesn’t hear music like this?”.
What are your plans for the future?
A personal aspiration of mine is to one day own my own dance studio that will center around and teach all sorts of different folk dance genres from all over the world, and to start a Houston Area Folk Dance Association to help to preserve cultural and folkloric dances in a world where folklore is being shoved out and replaced by modernism.
Romani Roses is still growing and expanding, and is a local Houston area small business that is open to partnerships, sponsorships, and the likes. We would love to work with more Houston and even Texas venues to put on more shows and work with dance studios to be able to teach more classes and workshops. We hope to also continue performing at the Texas Renaissance Festival for many years to come and would love to expand to other festivals as well!
Pricing:
- They can fill out the google doc on our website to receive a quote specific to their needs
Contact Info:
- Website: https://romaniroses.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/romaniroses/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RomaniRoses
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@romaniroses
