Trisha Sarker puts movement on centre stage
Age: 36
Job Title: Assistant Professor, MacEwan University
Trisha Sarker’s mother first enrolled her in Bharatanatyam dance classes to help her stay connected to her South Asian culture and heritage. Now, over 20 years later, Sarker hasn’t stopped moving.
“That skyrocketed my career path in a way,” Sarker says. “My passion about things such as art, culture and education — and being able to share that with others — was primarily from learning to dance from my culture.”
That background in dance and education would continue to follow Sarker, whether she was teaching dance for the City of Edmonton, serving as the executive director of Fitness Industry Council of Canada or hosting a children’s TV series (Strike a Pose) about the benefits of movement. Sarker also brought her love for movement into the often-static world of academia, where she completed her dissertation on the relationship between post-secondary student success and exercise.
“I think it’s really important to be able to take different aspects of your life and combine them together,” Sarker says. “So being able to take the education aspect of teaching children, as well as being able to take that fitness aspect, and melding it into something that creates a positive environment.”
This article appears in the Nov/Dec 2023 issue of Edify
