Living Through Dance

Annika Allado is a Filipino Street dancer, engineer, and member of the Duke community. I was fascinated by her balance between all of her activities, and her maintaining her relationships with her friends is truly something I admire. At the start of the semester, Annika was working on designing art for the dance team, Street Med, and working on her projects. Over the semester, I followed her through her dance practices, the Co-Lab, and her hanging out with her friends. I followed her through the process of choreographing dances to designing a skull to help practice surgeries. I learned about her past life of being a child actor and how her growing up in the philippines has changed her perspective on what it means to be a part of a community. Annika is someone that always looks to the future and how she can improve every aspect of her life. She aspires to perfection and won’t settle for anything less. What truly makes Annika great is not her past or the projects she’s working on but her interactions with her friends and how she inspires all of them to be better and work hard to achieve their greatness.