Name Dzajna Vankova | ||
Jana Vankova (born 21 March 1992 in Decin, Czech Republic), better known by her nickname Jaja, is a Czech dancer and choreographer. She started dancing at age 14 doing freestyle dancing and battling, then later began teaching choreography.
Vankova's dance career began in 2006 with the dance crew Out Of Bounds, where she learned to dance hip hop, and as an individual, learned popping and locking techniques, among other styles. She later became one of the crew's choreographers. Two of the Out Of Bounds choreographed dances won the national championship of Czech Republic in 2010; one of them being a choreography called "Why So Serious?" which was choreographed by Vankova. The crew together with Vankova also became semi-finalists of Czech Got Talent 2010. She has also choreographed theater shows and performed in commercials.
In 2010, Vankova auditioned to join a dance crew based in Houston, Texas. Phillip Chbeeb, Di Zhang and Brandon Harrell, previously of the crew Marvelous Motion, were looking for dancers to form a brand new crew, and Vankova, along with Chachi Gonzales and Emilio Dosal, were chosen as the new members, and the dance crew I.aM.mE was formed. I.aM.mE went on to become the champions of America's Best Dance Crew: Season 6 in 2011. They have appeared on Paramount's The LXD Season 3, and also in the AXI series, directed by Shawn Welling and released by Welling Films. In 2013, Vankova became a member of dance crew Street Kingdom, where she became known as 'Lady Tight Eyez', given to her by Street Kingdom leader 'Tight Eyez' Willis. In 2014, she auditioned for the reality dance competition So You Think You Can Dance along with crew mate, Emilio Dosal (who made the top 10 that season). She missed becoming one of the Top 20 finalists. She returned again the next year for the So You Think You Can Dance Season 12, where this time she was not only selected to compete in the Top 10, but emerged First in the "Team Street" category under Team Captain Stephen "tWitch" Boss, But came out as 1st Runner up Overall in the competition after Tap dancer,Gaby Diaz. She also featured in the fifth installment of the Step Up film series, Step Up: All In.v