REVIEWS: https://rollerowl.com/reviews/
GALLERY: https://rollerowl.com/gallery/
MEDIA ABOUT US:
Thanks so much for this recognition diploma Steveston Salmon Festival / Alan Sakai / City of Richmond BC. We’re proud to be a part of the City Of Richmond BC Canada Day Parade 2021.
See Roller Dance Owl at 13:57:
October 2020. An amazing surprise from Applewood Nissan Richmond BC – featuring Roller Dance Owl:
August 9, 2020. Richmond News BC about us:
Read full article it on Richmond News website: CLICK HERE.
Our Covid19 project “Angels on Wheels” which the reporter Nono Shen noticed in the article had a big attention of locals and on internet. I’d like to feature my most dedicated students: Mia8 , Emi1 and NaeNae (my daughter). With these kids we performed together in the United States, Canada, participated in “Waiters on Roller skates” at Ofra’s Kitchen Restaurant and many others. They learned how act on camera, how to dance in different styles, they got so much confidence and many skills. I am so grateful to have these kids on my Team. I am so grateful that their parents trust me as a coach and for taking our lessons seriously. God Bless you dear roller parents and students of Roller Dance Owl skate family.
With Love, Lana.
Photos: Canna Zhou, @cannaimage (IG)
April 2018. Roller Dance Owl at the Vancouver International Fashion Festival.
Read more:
http://www.clotheslinefinds.com/2018/04/canada-vancouver-international-fashion.html?m=1
All our images: http://rollerdanceowl.com/about-us/roller-dance-owl-at-the-vancouver-fashion-festival-2018/
August, 2018. Miss Wheelchair Canada 2018.
“How Miss Wheelchair Canada Is Breaking Beauty Misconceptions”
“The experience was incomparable to anything I’ve done before. Six women including me were participating in workshops at the Gathering Place Community Center where we tried on our gowns, had a hair and makeup team and received dance lessons from Lana Shahar. Shahar showed us dance moves, adapted accordingly for everyone, demonstrating that women in wheelchairs can dance like anyone else would. The grand event took place at the Roundhouse Community Center, with an audience of approximately 100 people. Bean Gill, an Edmonton woman won the prestigious crown of Miss Wheelchair Canada 2018. Gill embodies what it means to be Miss Wheelchair Canada as she is a co-founder of a rehab center.”
Read full article: https://themighty.com/2018/09/miss-wheelchair-canada-2018-breaking-beauty-misconceptions/
May 27, 2017. Vacouverok.com (Russian Media in Canada) about Lana Shahar Kulik (pen name Lagoonca), the founder of Roller Dance Owl Skate School:
http://vancouverok.com/zametki-immigrantov-o-kanade-lana-aelet-shahar-kulik-frilanser-i-osnovatel-skejt-shkoly-vankuver/
October 2016. Last week Aliona Slabenko – SFU New media journalism program student visited us. Aliona thanks for your interest in our school and a lovely video about us 🙂
August 2016: Roller Dance Owl Promo Video on Youtube:
We are just in awe from the amount of views we got (more than 4 million)!
Thank you all for your support!!!
June 24, 2016. Jewish Independent Vancouver BC Newspaper about Lana Shahar Kulik (Lana Lagoonca), the founder of Roller Dance Owl Skate School:
“An artist in multiple realms”:
http://www.jewishindependent.ca/an-artist-in-multiple-realms/
Lana Shahar-Kulik approaches life creatively. “In any situation, I like to imagine, What else could I do? How could I make it more interesting? And then I make my imagination a reality,” she said in an interview with the Independent.
Since she was 6 years old, she wanted to be a teacher, and she became one. She taught elementary school for several years in her native Riga, Latvia, before immigrating to Israel in 1998. Her professional life took an unexpected detour there, as she explored a different facet of her exuberant personality.
“I could become a teacher again but I wanted to try something different. I took classes in accounting but, after a couple weeks, I was so bored I wanted to scream. Numbers all day long. Then, our instructor introduced us to new software and told us to create an image with it. Most of my classmates drew some tools; I drew a dog. I enjoyed tinkering with the program. My instructor looked at my dog and said, ‘What are you doing here? You should study art.’”
That was the end of her accounting career. She enrolled in design college in Tel Aviv and spent four intensive years studying graphic design and visual communications.
“I always drew when I was young, but my parents – they were engineers – and I considered it a hobby. Only in Israel art became my profession. I loved it. It was what I wanted to do. I felt almost ecstatic with happiness. I could talk to people who thought like I did, who loved and understood art the way I did. I found my niche.”
Her teacher’s training helped her – she taught art at community centres to pay her college tuition. Afterward, she tried different areas of graphic design. She worked for the fashion industry and in marketing. “But I always wanted to create a book,” she recalled.
That dream didn’t materialize until she moved to Canada with her husband and baby daughter. In 2008, they settled in Vancouver.
“My husband went to work right away – he is a computer guy – but I stayed at home. My daughter was only months old, so we walked outside a lot. That was when I wrote a picture book about a young girl having adventures in Vancouver.”
Her picture book, Curly Orli Goes to Vancouver, by Lana Lagoonca, Shahar-Kulik’s pen name, was published in 2011. She subtitled the book “Plasticine Adventures,” because she originally created all the illustrations as colorful plasticine sculptures. Later, she hired a photographer to photograph her tiny sculptures and used those photos as the book’s images. (For more on Curly Orli and Lagoonca, click here.)
The book opened up a new and fascinating avenue for Shahar-Kulik: brand merchandising. Key chains, jigsaw puzzles, greeting cards, T-shirts and other objects featuring the images from her book are available at curlyorli.com and at several gift shops in Vancouver. She also offers workshops in plasticine and Play-Doh for children of different ages. “I plan to write more books about the same girl, Curly Orli, traveling to different cities, if only I had more time,” she said.
Shahar-Kulik’s love for Vancouver also motivated her to create an adult equivalent of the book – a blog about Vancouver in Russian for tourists and newcomers (lagoonca.livejournal.com).
“I haven’t updated this blog in years, no time, but people still write to me and ask me questions. I always reply, always try to help,” she said.
Helping clients with their graphic design needs, from websites to fashion catalogues, is what Shahar-Kulik’s company, Lunart (lunart.ca), does in four languages: English, Russian, Hebrew and Latvian.
Despite a very busy schedule, Shahar-Kulik recently added another activity to her portfolio. She has started teaching again – roller skating, where the skates have two rows of wheels (quads), and inline skating, where the skates have one set of wheels.
“I loved ice skating as a kid,” she said. “We had a big puddle in our yard and, in winter, it iced over. That’s where I learned to skate. When we came to Tel Aviv, there is no ice there, but there is a large and free outdoor rink for inline skating. I loved it. I learned to do tricks, danced on skates, even had a partner. It is another outlet for my creativity. Skating is like art on wheels. You create beauty with your feet.”
Shahar-Kulik started skating here when her daughter started day care.
“I discovered that Vancouver had no special rinks for roller and inline skating; not many lessons either, and most of them just technical. Nobody offered lessons in creative skating.”
She persevered, met other skating enthusiasts and learned about quad skating. When, in 2015, American skating firm Skate Journeys brought their summer camp to Vancouver, she enrolled and received a licence to be a skating instructor. She also participated in the American 2015 national championship for inline and roller skaters and finished fifth overall.
“I was ready to teach skating,” she said. “Of course, I taught it before, gave private and group lessons, but now I opened a school at Richmond Sports and Fitness. It is called Roller Dance Owl. We teach group dancing, slalom, pair dancing, technical elements and, of course, safe street skating. We play on wheels, have field trips, and the children love it.”
Roller Dance Owl has its own Facebook page, facebook.com/rollerdanceowl.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.
April 6, 2012. The Jewish Western Bulletin about Lana’s Book:
Creating a Children’s Book by Cynthia Ramsay (Full article: https://www.jewishindependent.ca/oldsite/archives/april12/archives12april06-27.html )
The author is humbly appreciative of the synagog “The Bayit” (Richmond, BC) & MAPLE GRILL – Kosher Restaurant (Vancouver, BC) for their support and sponsorship. The presentation was possible due to generous donation of synagog’s space. (eBook available in Roller Dance Owl Shop: CLICK HERE>> )
Part 1:
Part 2:
November 18, 2011 “Vancouver and us” Russian newspaper article, No.22 (379):
November 4, 2011 “Vancouver and us” Russian newspaper article, No.21 (378):
