Lois Langland Alumna-in-Residence 2017
Nkechi Deanna Njaka '05
Nkechi will combine several years of work as a neuroscientist, professional modern dancer, choreographer, and interdisciplinary artist to create a highly integrated and intentionally curated experience on the Scripps campus for students, faculty, and staff. Her residency program will include: somatic classes, guided meditation sits, l
eadership coaching, and movement sessions for self-expression and self-empowerment. Bio
Nkechi Deanna Njaka, MSc. is a neuroscientist, multi-disciplinary artist and integrated lifestylist combining her backgrounds in neuroscience, dance, nutrition and fashion to create a mindful and creative space for individual consulting, coaching and content creation. She is a self-identified multi-ethnic woman of color, deeply concerned about personal and global well-being, progressive and radical wellness for the critical and creative thinking. She attended Scripps College in Claremont, CA where she majored in neuroscience and dance and went on to complete an MSc. in Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh. She is the founder of NDN lifestyle studio and the co-founder of Sitting Matters. Nkechi has spent the majority of her life investigating the relationship between the brain and the body and has always felt the significance of their integration. For several years, Nkechi worked as a neuroscientist as well as a professional modern dancer + choreographer. She discovered that mindfulness and creativity are C R U C I A L for sustaining individual and global wellbeing. She believes that mindfulness + movement are our access to authentic creativity and full self expression. As we gain creative identity, we lose the false sense of the self that we were sustaining. Her creative investigations draw from a long-term interdisciplinary and collaborative practice merging visual art, science, experimental music, technology, and personal and conceptual relationships. She is interested in the intersection of science and art and find that her practice is a vehicle for radical presence and progressive wellness. Never literal, her choreographic work allows the audience to speculate, relate, and discover their own experiences with psychopathology, spirituality or existentialism. She considers her dances as theoretical experiments.
