LEILA MARIE ALI
LEILA ALI - THE LOVER NOT THE FIGHTER
Actress, writer, poet, filmmaker, traveller, hula hoop dancer. Those are just a few of the hats Leila Marie Ali has worn in a decorated career that spans several countries. Leila graduated NYU with a BFA in Theater and went on to perform on stages in New York City, Tokyo and Melbourne.
In Japan she travelled from the southern islands of Okinawa to the northern island of Hokkaido and every province in between as she danced and sang her way through 4 seasons of traveling Children's Shows as an Edutainer for a company licensed by Disney. She performed monthly at The Tokyo Comedy Store as a member of the resident improv group Spontaneous Confusion. Leila also moonlighted as the talent and event coordinator for Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, Tokyo Edition, an after hours life drawing event that featured burlesque dancers as exotic subjects.
Usually a cheeky euphemism, it's pretty accurate to say that Leila Marie Ali is huge in Japan. She has worked extensively on both the national TV network NHK and internationally broadcast network NHK World as an English Teacher and TV correspondent respectively on such nationally acclaimed programs as Kiso Eigo and Tokyo Eye. Leila has also done numerous animation voice-overs and Japanese commercials.
Five years later she would travel to Australia on sabbatical and busk her way down the east coast with her hula hoops in the back of a very beat up old backpacker's station wagon. After 6 years of living and traveling abroad Leila has returned to America and settled in Los Angeles to further her career in the performing arts.
LATEST NEWS
Leila is deep at work on two passion projects.
Politics & Poetry is a show Leila is developing with fellow Los Angeles based poets and dancers that combines the fast-paced frenetic energy of spoken word poetry with the supercharged high octane energy of hip hop dance. This choreo-poem is entertainment with message aimed at getting today's youth more interested in current events.
Gap Year is a docu-series in three parts which focuses primarily on examining a crippled commodities based tertiary education system, explores the merits of traveling on working holiday visas and the need to change American foreign policy to allow for more reciprocity agreements between industrialized nations which will enhance the youthful travel experience all around.