Tamara discovered a love of dancing in 1996 training in West African dance under the Pashami Dancers of Lansing, MI. As a student at Kalamazoo College she was a dancer, costume designer, actress, and choreographer in the annual performances of the Cultural Awareness Troupe and returned as an alumni to co-write and direct the 2000 edition of the show. Her dance experiences include performing, teaching, and choreography with the Ujima Youth Dance Troupe (5 years) in Kalamazoo, MI as well as performing with the liturgical dance group Grace in Motion, and the Ali Abdula West African dance group. She also trained for six months at the National Theater in Nairobi ,Kenya with members of local dance companies and completed a senior thesis on the cultural significance and technical aspects of traditional dancing among ethnic groups of Kenya. She is delighted to be a member of Bichini Bia Congo (joining in October 2003) where she has experienced her most accelerated growth and development as a dancer. Currently Tamara is a doctoral student in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the University of Michigan, but still makes time to choreograph African and liturgical pieces for her church's youth and adult groups of the cultural and performing arts ministry. She has recently attended dance workshops in Washington DC, New York and Paris, France.