Meet Saffatt Al-Mansoor | Choreographer, Dance Educator and Electrical Engineer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Saffatt Al-Mansoor and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Saffatt, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?

I grew up in Qatar in the late ’90s. From the start, anyone who was not Qatari was made to feel like an outsider. The locals had special identity cards, did not need a permit to leave the country or have their passports taken away by someone called a “sponsor” or “kafeel”. I did not understand most of this till later but when I did, I found my calling in hip hop and dance. It was the only place where I felt like I belonged.

Moving from Qatar to Ottawa, Canada and now in California, I took numerous dance classes and took a note of what was missing in the dance classes that the south Asian community was attending. Most classes were choreography focused which left most students with a feeling of joy in class but not much inspiration to learn more after class. Most people stopped going to these classes at some point because they did not really have a reason to after the “hype” was over. I decided to change that in my classes through focus on the “people” aspect of dance. At the end of the day, it is the people and the community that will support you and keep you going.

Now, almost 20 years since I found hip hop, I am a dance educator sharing what helped me with my community here in the Bay Area, California. I am also a electrical engineer working to solve network issues when I am not dancing.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

I am a Choreographer, Dancer and Dance Educator when I am not working as a full time electrical engineer. I am one of the few dance educators from South Asia who is approaching hip hop dance from an education and community perspective. My classes and content are meant to connect my community to the source of information with a focus on the people aspect of the dance. In my dance classes, I connect my students with the people who were actually there when the music and dance was created to bring their stories to my students.

It was definitely challenging to get to where I am today. Growing up in a middle class family, we were never really financially stable. Being the only son in a south Asian household, the expectation to take care of my parents financially set in early during high school when my father got laid off in Qatar. I took a year off after high school to work support my family financially. After a year, my parents sold off every piece of land in their home country of Bangladesh to pay for my international student fees at the University of Ottawa in Canada.

I continued dancing in my uncle’s basement while starting my Bachelor of Sciene in Electrical Engineering at the University of Ottawa. Moving to Canada away from the people I loved the most was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. I had no idea where dance would take me knowing the kind of pressure I had on my shoulders to be financially stable enough after graduation to support my parents and my little sister who was 9 years old at the time in Qatar. I never gave up and looking back at those times, I am glad I did not.

Today, I am the only choreographer of Bangladeshi background to have worked with an artist like Bohemia who is credited with being the creator of the genre of music known as Desi Hip Hop. I have also been blessed to have the opportunity to work with several other south Asian hip hop artists including Fateh and Amar Sandhu.

I want the world to know that if a Bangladeshi kid from a very modest background who grew up in a super conservative country like Qatar can make his dreams come true, anyone can. The people you allow yourself to be surrounded with and your mindset will make you who you are. I will continue creating spaces for people who look like me so that someday another kid just like me can look forward to pursuing a career in dance just because they saw another brown person make it. I really believe representation matters because I credit some of what kept me going despite my circumstances to the few brown dancers like Dharmesh Yelande and Ganesh Hegde showing up on my TV screen when I was only about 15.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?

If my friend was in town visiting the Bay Area, we would be kicking it back and talking for hours with some of our favourite music growing up. I would take them to some of the beautiful hikes around the Bay and try out all the Indian and Mexican restaurants in town. No day would end without a breaking and dancing session. Each session would likely end with us shooting a lot of Tiktok videos.

I love being a tourist in my city so we would definitely visit the palace of fine arts and the golden gate bridge (and shoot a lot of Tiktok videos there as well). We would do a few wine tours in Napa Valley and visit Sacramento for a day. The one thing I would be most excited to do with them would be to introduce them to my community of dancers here. I would bring them to my weekly classes and then go out to eat at Zareen’s in Palo Alto after class. We would likely go bar hopping over the weekend if we are feeling adventurous. All my friends love our 8 month old son so we will definitely spend a lot of time making him smile. He absolutely loves sitting on those basic restaurant high chairs and cannot stop laughing when he is on one. This means that we will definitely be eating out often just for the entertainment value.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?

I would like to give a huge shoutout to my family, my wife and my new born son for giving me the inspiration to continue doing what I do. It has been challenging moving our entire life over from Canada to live here in the Bay Area to pursue my dream. Living away from all our family here in California during this time has been challenging but they have never let me even think about quitting dance once.

Some of my mentors who deserve a special shoutout are Mr, Wiggles, Bboy Wicket and Culture Shock Dance Troupe for shaping me to be the dancer and teacher I am today. A huge shoutout to my community of desi dancers for continually striving for representation in all spaces.

Website: www.sachoreography.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/saffatt

Youtube: www.youtube.com/saffatt

Image Credits
Sukhjot Singh