Guest User 12/8/22 Guest User 12/8/22

Getting To Know DWC Ambassador EmmaRose DeSantis

At Dancewear Center, we always look for people that can help fulfill our message that “every body is a dancing body.” New DWC Ambassador Emma Rose DeSantis was perfect for that! We got the opportunity to speak with Emma Rose about her dancing journey! Read on to learn more about what dance means to Emma Rose and what inspired her to become an Ambassador!

Pronunciation: Em-ma Rose Dee-san-tis | Pronouns: she/her

By Nicole Barrett, DWC Blog Editor

Emma Rose has been dancing ever since she was 3 years old. She shares that she started with creative movement/ballet classes and then took some modern classes. Emma Rose grew up on Vashon Island, so she took classes and trained at Vashon Center for the Arts. As she entered high school, Vashon Center for the Arts introduced some other styles like jazz and hip hop to their studio, which allowed Emma Rose to explore those styles during her later dance years.

After high school, Emma Rose went to Western Washington University to get her BFA in Dance with two minors in Business Administration and Entrepreneurship and Innovation. During her time at Western, she was involved in some dance clubs around campus and she shares that she mainly was involved with those clubs during her junior and senior years at the university. Emma Rose currently focuses on contemporary and hip-hop styles and continues ballet to help with her technique and training for other styles.

At first, Emma Rose didn’t think that she could become a DWC Ambassador. She then received a message on social media from Dancewear Center saying that she should apply. As she was applying, Emma Rose was looking at the mission of DWC and loved the message that they wanted to uphold as a company and she knew that she wanted to apply. She loved how friendly the community was and is looking forward to being a part of the DWC community as an Ambassador.

We are so happy to have Emma Rose as one of our new DWC Ambassadors! Watch the full interview below to hear more about Emma Rose’s dancing journey!

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Guest User 12/2/22 Guest User 12/2/22

DWC's Best Nutcracker Gifts for 2022

It’s officially Nutcracker season! Dancers around the area are scrambling to prepare for their annual performances of the classic tale The Nutcracker. This allows the dancers to create unforgettable memories and entertain hundreds of audiences from far and wide. From holiday-themed leotards to storybooks for little kids, any of the items on this list would make fabulous holiday gifts for your favorite Nutcracker performers sold here at Dancewear Center!

By Nicole Barrett, DWC Blog Editor

Motionwear Nutcracker Hoodies

During the winter months, it’s even more crucial for dancers to bundle up and stay warm when they train and rehearse. Fortunately, Motionwear has dancers covered with their line of Nutcracker hoodies, crewnecks, and tank tops. Check out the preppy “Nutcracker Academy” crewneck, laid-back “Nutcracker on Duty” hoodie, and more at Dancewear Center.

Nutcracker’s Back Tote Bag

Nutcracker season comes with endless rehearsals to make sure that the show is as best as it can be. This causes dancers to bring lots of things to these rehearsals to make sure they have everything they need. This Nutcracker’s Back Tote Bag is perfect for that! This bag has pockets big enough to hold laptops and lots of dance gear to make the transition between studio and theater go smoothly.

“Nutcracker Dancing Shapes” Book from Once Upon a Dance
Local small business Once Upon a Dance produces educational and entertaining dance and movement books for children of various ages. The brand is primarily known for its “Dancing Shapes” books, which outline different dance poses for children to learn and follow. The“Nutcracker Dancing Shapes” book adds a festive spin to the series, providing readers with twenty-five different Nutcracker roles to follow.

Danse de Paris Nutcracker Sweet Leotard

The “Nutcracker Sweet” line by Danse de Paris features products adorned with a celebratory Nutcracker print, displaying characters from the production, like Clara, The Nutcracker Prince, and the Rat King. This woman-owned business has the “sweetest” leotards for the holiday season.

“The Nutcracker Practice and Play Book” by Russian Pointe

One of the most endearing and exciting parts of The Nutcracker is the story itself. Who doesn’t want to follow Clara’s journey as she ventures through an enchanted, snowy forest and the Land of Sweets? “The Nutcracker Practice and Play Book” from Russian Pointe is the perfect gift for a youngster who enjoys ballet and allows for yet another fun and stimulating way to engage with the iconic plotline.

Cloud & Victory “Winter is Coming” T-Shirt

Cloud and Victory is a small, woman-owned business known for its charming and stylish graphic T-shirts, leotards, and other dancewear products and accessories. The brand’s “Winter is Coming” T-shirt is the perfect gift for a dancer who loves Game of Thrones, as it depicts characters from the fantasy series as characters in The Nutcracker.

The Nutcracker has become an important part of how many families celebrate the holiday season. Commemorate its significance with some of DWC’s favorite Nutcracker products - whether it’s gifting them to others or yourself, they're sure to add a pinch of magic to your dancing and holiday experience.

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Guest User 11/21/22 Guest User 11/21/22

Local Young Choreographer Christian West on What Modern Dance Means to Him

This show is formatted like a double feature where the first act is a showcase of pieces to Kate Bush songs and the second act is its own piece to a concept suite on one of her albums Hounds of Love, which is on the B side of the record called The Ninth Wave. The plot of the concept piece is that she is drowning and it explores themes of rebirth, grief, death, life and love. “It’s a very cathartic human sound, all of her music is, and it’s such a heavy subject matter that we’re having so much fun with,” he shares, laughing.

A Conversation on Promoting Young Dancers

By Nicole Barrett, DWC Blog Editor

The DWC Blog loves to highlight dancers and choreographers in the Seattle area. Because of this, we got the opportunity to speak with Christian West who is a newly graduated high school student who has put together a show coming on stage this November! Read on to learn more about Christian’s dance journey and what his show has in store!

Christian started dancing when he was in the first grade. He has been dancing at Spotlight Dance Center since he started and shares that he has taken some tap classes at Village Theater KidsStage. One of the main reasons why he started dancing was because he did musical theater, which is why he primarily started out with tap. He shares that his immense passion for dance outside of musical theater didn’t occur until his junior year of high school. “So, fairly new!” he says, laughing.

Christian has always been fascinated by dance and it is a pivotal part of his life. Dance has allowed him to view the world around him in ways that he wouldn’t have if he wasn’t as involved in dance. “[I’m] just constantly looking at people and the way that they move and how that's fascinating to me,” Christian shares.

All his dance training has been through Spotlight Dance Center and he shares that it feels like a home. “It’s definitely a big part of my dance upbringing,” he says. Modern dance is a specific style that he says means a lot to him and he shares that dancing at Spotlight is why he thinks it means so much to him. Through his own choreography, he has noticed that it is much more geared towards the performance bases of dance rather than the competition-based dance of other studios.

In late November, Christian is putting together a show dedicated to Kate Bush. He shares that he has been obsessed with her music for about four years ever since his sister showed her music to him. “She showed me all of her really weird music videos where she has all this modern dance, and that’s almost been like a spell, like it’s entrancing,” he recalls, smiling. The meaning of the music and her own dancing in her music videos is something that he gains inspiration from, specifically for this show.

Christian loves incorporating small, specific movements in his choreography, so he shares that Bob Fosse, Pina Bausch and Mark Morris are some choreographers that inspire him as well. Aside from big-name choreographers, Christian seeks inspiration from co-choreographer of this piece Pilar Galdamez. Both have danced at Spotlight Dance Center together and he says that they can connect in ways of understanding one another very easily because of it.

Christian and Pilar’s choreographic process involves many different aspects. Most of the process is expressing a vision to one another and then choreographing it themselves and placing it on the dancers. But, they also use a unique technique that is used by one of the teachers at Spotlight where they tell the dancers to improv and then film them dancing. “We then watch the way their bodies move and the poses that their bodies naturally fit into to try and make it seem as natural and authentic for the dancers to perform as possible,” he says.

When asked about what he enjoys about the style of modern itself, he shares that he appreciates the time that it was born and how much it changed the dance world. He loves the pure innovation of what modern dance has done and the authenticity of what it means and looks like in every dancer’s body. He shares that there is a specific piece in his show where there are multiple different dancers in pointe shoes, and bare feet doing what they love and feel good in their bodies. Christian and Pilar’s main goal for this piece is to integrate personality and just being a person into their choreography which is how they are trying to bring light to modern dance.

“She’s 16 years old and I’m 18, so we’ve never done anything like this before,” Christian shares. “This is a huge project to take on.” Just simply creating everything and being in a room full of people and telling them what to do is something that he shares has been a struggle for the both of them. In light of the pandemic, he shares that any struggles that they have faced while putting this production together have come as a hidden blessing. All of the dancers that they are putting into the show are close friends or attend Spotlight, which has helped them in the long run.

When asked about what aspect he is most excited for people to see in this show, Christian shares that he is really excited for people to see something that he loves and hopes that they love it too. He hopes that people can be as entranced and fascinated by the music as he is. He is also really excited to share younger people’s viewpoints on the subject matter of this piece and to introduce new choreographers to the dance scene.

You can come and see this show at the Erikson Theater in Capitol Hill, Seattle on November 25th and November 26th and all of the proceeds of this event will go to the charity LANDBACK. This show will feature dancing from Christian West, Pilar Galdamez, Mia Behnke, Alivia Behnke, Nicole Barrett, Tija Dupont, Miles Rich-Davis, Simone Joshua and others. Buy tickets here for any of the three performances. We hope to see you at the show!

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Guest User 11/18/22 Guest User 11/18/22

Getting To Know DWC Ambassador Aubrey Zappen

Promoting body positivity is something very important to new DWC Ambassador Aubrey Zappen. When she heard about DWC, she instantly loved what the company stood for and new that she wanted to apply for the ambassadorship. We got the opportunity to speak with Aubrey about her dancing journey! Read on to learn more about what dance means to Aubrey and what inspired her to become an Ambassador!

Pronunciation: Aw-brie Zap-in | Pronouns: she/her

By Nicole Barrett, DWC Blog Editor

Starting at the age of 3, Aubrey knew that she always wanted to dance. She shares that there were very few times in her life that she ever doubted that she wanted to dance. She knew it was for her. Aubrey currently dances at the Academy of Dance in Port Orchard, Washington, and shares that she loves the community there. Within the past year, she realized that she wanted to dance as her career and go to school for it. As a senior in high school, she is preparing for auditions for various schools that she is wanting to go to.

One reason why Aubrey was inspired to become a DWC Ambassador was because of some of her peers at her studio. She had just heard about Dancewear Center and she shares that when she did she immediately fell in love with everything about it. Aubrey loves the importance of “every body is a dancing body” and appreciates that this business is promoting diversity and body positivity in every way. She shares the importance of this acceptance in the dance world and hopes to do that as a DWC Ambassador.

We are so happy to have Aubrey as one of our new DWC Ambassadors! Watch the full interview below to hear more about Aubrey’s dancing journey!

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Guest User 11/14/22 Guest User 11/14/22

Local Dance Non-Profit on Prioritizing Dance Education for Adults

This new upcoming show will be held on November 18th and 19th at Broadway Performance Hall in Seattle at 8 pm. Dare to Dance’s shows started in 2010 with the first show simply called Dare to Dance. These shows aim to get people who don’t have a lot of dance training but want to start dancing on stage and perform. To include people who are dance enthusiasts and just want to dance. These dance pieces specifically are meant to showcase different dance styles and the utter joy that the people onstage have when performing.

A Conversation with the Directors of Dare to Dance Seattle

By Nicole Barrett, DWC Blog Editor

The dance world has come a long way in recent years for the acceptance of everyone. Gender norms are being broken and traditional ways of training are being pushed aside. One gap that is still working its way through the realm of dance is the gap for adults starting to dance at an older age. This is something that Dare to Dance Seattle is trying to tackle with their yearly performances. We got the opportunity to speak with Administrative Director Cindy Jacobs and Artistic Director Zheng Wang about their upcoming performance on November 18th and 19th! Read on to learn more about the mission of Dare to Dance and details for their upcoming show!

Zheng shares that he was not a dancer when he was growing up. He says that he never considered himself a dancer until he found a group that participated in flash mobs in 2010. The flash mob was performing at Westlake Center in Seattle and he says that he went with a friend and was a part of the big crowd dancing together. “That was just really fun, really exciting, so I just kept going back,” he recalls.

While participating in the flash mobs, he met a group of people that were very passionate about dance, but they weren’t “professionals.” He credits meeting this group of people as the true beginning of starting Dare to Dance and his reason for creating a show with the flash mob community.

Cindy started taking dance classes when she was five years old and shares that back when she was training, there were no performances or recitals. There were just strictly classes for technique. Her father was in the military so she says that she moved around a lot and learned different dance styles such as tap and hula. She continued to dance throughout high school and shares that she took a little break after graduating.

Later on, in her adult years, she started dancing again in some community-based performances and stage musicals. She then started dancing with a community show choir and later on choreographed for them. Cindy and her choreography partner Sue have worked together for many years and have choreographed numerous pieces in various locations. “I just love to dance,” she shares, smiling.

Dare to Dance encourages group performances to share the joy of dancing together. Each specific piece showcases a dance style and choreographers from various locations bring these pieces for the dancers to perform. This organization just wants to share dance with everybody.

Cindy shares that when she joined the team in 2018 she was very impressed with the organization of the company and loved the mission. “It was extremely welcoming,” she shares. She says that something that surprised her was the amount of diversity between the dances and the dancers. “It’s really a fun show!” Cindy says.

The goal of Dare to Dance as a non-profit organization is to provide professional-quality opportunities for dance enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels to create, perform, connect and grow. “It’s really about providing that opportunity to people that don’t get it otherwise,” Zheng shares. He emphasizes the fact that “non-dancers” don’t get the opportunities to perform onstage like dancers that train at a studio do. Zheng believes that the audience can see themselves onstage when they are watching these performances that they might not with other shows.

When coming up with this idea, Zheng shares that he thought that this was a very out-of-the-box concept to create. He says that he disguised the first show as a big birthday celebration for his 35th birthday to ensure that people would turn out and want to celebrate. “I figured that if it was a total disaster, we could just write it off as having fun for my birthday!” Zheng shares, laughing. What surprised him the most was how successful it was and it allowed him to continue doing these shows from then on.

Something that makes Dare to Dance stand out amongst other organizations is the fact that every idea is open for discussion. “‘Hey, you have a good idea? Sure! Can you get some dancers?’” Cindy shares, smiling. She elaborates that there aren’t the boundaries that typical dance organizations have and they focus their time on allowing adult amateurs to have the opportunity to dance onstage. Cindy states that the most important thing about Dare to Dance is that there are no pre-existing rules for what kind of dance or dancers they need. “We are willing to look at everything,” she shares.

Dare to Dance 11: Together Again, will take place on November 18th and 19th at 8 pm at Broadway Performance Hall in Seattle, Washington. Be sure to check out their website here for more details, or go here to buy your tickets now! We hope to see you there!

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Guest User 11/4/22 Guest User 11/4/22

Exploring Dance in Academia as a Parent

“It’s my personal way of processing and understanding the world,” CarliAnn says of why she loves dancing. She describes herself as a kinesthetic person, using physicality as a way to connect with others and share experiences. CarliAnn also appreciates what a great medium dance is for storytelling, as communicating stories through the body can utilize a richness that simple text cannot, making it an accessible storytelling tool.

CarliAnn Bruner Recounts Her Dance Journey

Name pronunciation: Carlee-Ann B-run-er | Pronouns: she/her

By by Madison Huizinga, DWC Blog Contributor

Photo by 127th St.

The role dance plays in a person’s life can vary immensely, from taking community classes, to professionally performing, to becoming a trained educator in the practice. Dance artist and educator CarliAnn Bruner has experienced this wide range of dance roles throughout her journey and currently works as an adjunct professor of dance at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. Read on to learn more about CarliAnn’s dance journey and experiences exploring dance in academia and as a parent.

Some of CarliAnn’s earliest movement memories are in gymnastics lessons, which her parents enrolled her in at age two. She loved gymnastics but felt especially drawn to the dance and style aspects of the balance beam and floor routines. After participating in competitive gymnastics until she was thirteen, CarliAnn dove head first into dancing and fell in love with it.

“At fifteen, I was like ‘Mom, I’m going to be a dancer when I grow up!’” CarliAnn recollects. At sixteen, she began regularly driving herself two hours from her hometown of Yakima, Washington to Seattle to take dance classes at Velocity Dance Center, Spectrum Dance Theater, and Westlake Dance Center. “My parents were so trusting,” she laughs about her younger self driving so far for dance.

CarliAnn attended Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, where she received her BFA, majoring in dance and minoring in kinesiology. While in the Vancouver area, a standout moment for her was getting to perform in the closing ceremonies at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

After college, CarliAnn auditioned for some dance companies in other cities, eventually landing a job with 127th St. Dance Company in Seattle. “That was my jumping-off point, my entry into the Seattle [dance] scene,” CarliAnn says of the job. “I met a lot of people who I’m still good friends with.”

CarliAnn later danced with Khambatta Dance Company, where she performed at venues around the world, including India, Brazil, Mexico, and Lithuania. She also danced in the inaugural season of Intrepidus Dance, with DWC Owner and General Manager Samantha Weissbach and former DWC staff member Holly Logan Livingston.

Through Khambatta Dance Company, CarliAnn was introduced to fellow dancer and DWC Director of Marketing Ethan Rome. The two artists were drawn to the art of choreography and desired to create their own dance company. So, they started Forthun + Rome Dance Theater in 2016, which created and showed work around Washington for about three years.

In 2018, CarliAnn and her husband found themselves itching to live in a new city. After some searching, they landed in Spokane. CarliAnn got connected with Gonzaga University Dance Director Suzanne Ostersmith and became a guest artist at the university, choreographing work for a production of theirs.

Teaching at Gonzaga prompted CarliAnn to think about getting her master’s degree. In 2021, she earned her MFA in dance at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Her thesis focused on indigenous contemporary dance, a subject personal to CarliAnn as a descendant of the Colville Tribe in Washington. “It was a nice way to use my art to reconnect to my heritage and my ancestry,” she says. Due to COVID-19, much of CarliAnn’s master’s program took place over Zoom in Washington, while she was pregnant with her second child. While this virtual format posed many challenges, she appreciated having the opportunity to interview family members for her thesis research, an opportunity she may not have had if she was living in a different state.

Currently, CarliAnn is working as an adjunct professor of dance at Gonzaga University. She’s in the process of creating a curriculum for a course on arts leadership and administration with a specific focus on art management in the nonprofit sector. She’s passionate about making sure organizations are conscious of the voices that they are uplifting and hopes to bring attention to that through her teaching. CarliAnn also recently launched a course on dance improvisation, something that many of her students had been seeking more education about. She’s also planning on being the rehearsal director for the Gonzaga University Repertory Dance Company. This season, dance artist Ashley Menestrina will be setting work on the Gonzaga dancers, which CarliAnn is greatly excited to see.

In addition to her academic work, CarliAnn has been making a greater effort to slowly come back into the studio for herself for the first time in a while. She’s created a couple of pieces largely inspired by her thesis and personal research. She shares that being able to travel and tour her art around the world again is a long-time goal of hers.

“It’s interesting being an artist and a parent,” CarliAnn says. Not only has she had to re-acquaint herself with her body after having children, but she also says she’s learning where her place in the dance community is again. She says that in many ways, due to COVID-19, dance opportunities have been made more accessible to her as a parent due to the abundance of online options. At the same time, there are also many opportunities that aren’t as accessible due to time and distance limitations interfering with her important role as a parent. She shares that she sometimes feels like she has to hide her children away as an artist when in reality, they are an important part of her art-making. CarliAnn is excited to see discussions about being an artist and a parent beginning to happen more and hopes to see more holistic acceptance of artists and dancers as whole beings.

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Guest User 10/26/22 Guest User 10/26/22

Scary Dance Pieces to Get You in the Halloween Spirit

Whether it’s curling up to watch your favorite horror movie or tip-toeing through an eerie haunted house, Halloween is one of the only times of the year when people choose to get scared! There’s something about the rain clouds rolling in and the chill that falls in the air that makes people enthusiastic about spooks. For dancers that are passionate about the spooky season, we’ve curated a list of the most chilling dance pieces to get you into the holiday spirit.

By Madison Huizinga, DWC Blog Editor

“Dark Matters,” Kidd Pivot, choreography by Crystal Pite

In “Dark Matters,” the incomparable Crystal Pite showcases chilling choreography on her company Kidd Pivot. The work features a dancer being attacked by a puppet controlled by several shadow figures. The piece turns quite meta, as the person’s body is dragged away and his home is dismantled, with the words “THIS IS FAKE” projected across the stage. Lights flash, shadows are cast, and bodies move with creepy contours.

“Double Murder - Clowns,” choreography by Hofesh Schecter

CONTENT WARNING: IMAGES OF GUNS

“Clowns” is a part of the double bill, Double Murder, choreographed by the renowned Hofesh Schecter. Images of clowns are certainly evoked, from the billowy costumes, the bouncing motions, and the circus-esque atmosphere. Yet, there is something on edge about the movements, with shaking and flailing adding an eeriness to it all. It feels as though you’re peeping in on the inner workings of a cult of ex-clowns.

“The Hospital,” Quest Crew

Quest Crew’s “The Hospital” fittingly takes place in an eerie hospital, full of scares and creeps around every corner. Piercing music plays as a brooding nurse storms through decrepit halls. The patients swing axes and ramble nonsensically as the camera pans into each room of the hospital. The crew of doctors at the end showcases remarkable, gravity-defying breaking moves. With a surprise twist ending, this dance piece is undoubtedly not worth missing.

“The Rite of Spring,” choreography by Pina Bausch

Pina Bausch’s “The Rite of Spring” is a thriller through and through. Expertly blending frantic gestures with smooth lines, all kinds of energy flows through the piece to draw viewers in. Dancers flail about, throw harsh stares, and engage in jerking gestures, often in large clusters and circles, alluding to cult-like motifs. The chilling nature of the dancers’ movements and facial expressions, paired with the heart-pounding orchestral music makes the whole piece rather unnerving, perfect to watch during this time of the year. Click the link above to view behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage of “The Rite of Spring,” or this link to see an excerpt.

“Creature” (Because of What You Have Done) by Akram Khan

Finally, “Creature” by Akram Kahn conveys thriller-like qualities as well, but in a rather different form than “The Rite of Spring.” Stumbling around to a warped recording of Richard Nixon’s 1969 speech to the Apollo 11 astronauts, performer Jeffrey Cirio’s character appears in a sort of psychological prison. Timed with Nixon’s words, Cirio moves in slow motion and then snaps into jittery upright motions, mouthing the words and pulling at his jaw. The whole piece contains unsettling and evocative qualities fit for the scary season.

Who said dance can’t be spooky? Take a break from your trick-or-treating, horror movie binging, and candy-eating to check out these scary dance pieces. They’re sure to get you in the Halloween spirit!

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Guest User 10/16/22 Guest User 10/16/22

Celebrating Multicultural Dance at O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival

O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival is set to have an array of guest performers, in addition to performances from MMDC. The festival will feature performances by KOSMIX, a dance group that covers popular K-pop dances around the Seattle area. MiYoung looks forward to KOSMIX bringing a youthful energy to the festival line-up. Eurasia Virtual Academy & Ensemble is another guest performer, featuring artists specializing in dance from Central Asian cultures, as well as classical Russian-style ballet. Adage Ballet Studio, founded by PNB dancer Abby Jayne DeAngelo and former PNB dancer Guillaume Basso, will also showcase excerpts from Swan Lake, including a pas de deux danced by the founders themselves. Finally, Parmida Ziaei, an Iranian American designer, performer, choreographer, and MMDC dancer, will be a featured artist/choreographer at the festival, showcasing a modified version of her work Journey, centered around the concept of immigration.

MiYoung Margolis on Connecting Cultures Through Art

Name pronunciation: Me-Young Mar-gole-is | Pronouns: she/her

By Madison Huizinga, DWC Blog Editor

Part of what makes the Seattle area such an inspiring and vibrant place to live is the diversity embodied across its inhabitants. Throughout the region, artists of all genres showcase their unique backgrounds and help cement feelings of community through their own innovative creations. Local artist MiYoung Margolis is interested in not only celebrating Seattle’s cultural diversity in dance but also bringing multiple cultures together through art. That’s why she and the rest of MiYoung Margolis Dance Collective are presenting the first annual O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival, an event aimed at engaging audiences in an elevated multicultural performance art experience. Buy tickets for this one-night-only event on November 5th, 2022 at 7:00 PM at Broadway Performance Hall in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington.

MiYoung is a lifelong dancer and artist who has trained mainly in ballet, modern, and traditional Korean dance styles. She is the creator of MiYoung Margolis Dance Collective or MMDC, a Seattle-based dance company specializing in performance art that blends contemporary dance with various cultural traditions, including those inspired by MiYoung’s Korean heritage.

The name of O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival is inspired by the Korean folk tale of Ojakgyo, or the “Bridge of Crows and Magpies.” The tale is about two lovers who are vastly separated but meet together on July 7, the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, when crows and magpies form a bridge to unite them. MiYoung points out that Seattle is a multicultural city that often has community events centered around individual cultures, often in their own silos. Thus, she created the O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival as a way to “bridge” the gap between these different cultural events and bring performers together for one night to celebrate art on an upscale stage.

“My purpose is to create a platform that brings these talented local artists to an elevated stage,” MiYoung says of her mission behind the festival. She hopes the event inspires performers and audience members to embrace the unique facets of different cultures while enabling explorations of fusions between traditional and contemporary dance traditions. The juxtaposition of tradition and modernity is a theme MiYoung enjoys exploring in her own choreography as well.

MMDC’s choreography often involves elements of contemporary, ballet, or tango styles of dance, which are used to help facilitate the telling of Korean-inspired stories. MMDC plans to showcase three dance pieces, including a version of MiYoung’s piece “The Wind of Fate,” a dance originally set as a duet that will be reworked as a group performance. Throughout her choreographic work, MiYoung enjoys blending traditional elements of Korean culture, such as music or costumes, with more non-traditional contemporary movements to defy audience expectations.

On September 10th and 11th 2022, MMDC performed during Chuseok, a traditional Korean mid-autumn harvest festival in honor of the full moon. The dance company’s performances in Gig Harbor and Tacoma, Washington acted as a preview of what to expect at the O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival in November.

In the coming years, MiYoung hopes to make the O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival an annual event. And in the spring of 2023, she plans to organize another Seattle dance festival centered around solos and duet performances. Stay tuned to MMDC’s social media for more information.

Be sure to buy tickets for the first annual O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival on November 5th, 2022 at 7:00 PM at Broadway Performance Hall in Seattle, Washington.

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Guest User 10/13/22 Guest User 10/13/22

Dances of Spain’s Jackie MacLin on Exploring the Rich Cultures of Flamenco

Jackie believes that a way to tackle this issue is to get more men and boys involved in dance at younger ages. She has noticed that in some areas boys are discouraged to join dance because it can be “too feminine.” Jackie would love to see more schools and companies open up more dance classes for boys to allow them to experience dance. “Let them experience it and hope that they don’t see it as something boys can’t do, but something extremely exciting and really powerful,” Jackie shares.

By Nicole Barrett, DWC Blog Editor

Flamenco is a vigorous rhythmic style of dance that comes from the southern tip of Spain. This highly-expressive art form is not only beautiful to watch but leaves the mover feeling powerful. Local flamenco instructor Jackie MacLin has been performing this invigorating dance style since she was young and knows the importance of passing on her knowledge to her dancers. Read on to learn more about Jackie’s dance journey and her mission in the world of flamenco!

Jackie started dancing when she was just 5 years old in her hometown of Santa Barbara, California. One of her family members was a former dancer and started a dance studio in her home. “She would move her dining room table out of the way and we would dance around,” she recalls. Jackie remembers her first performance where she wore sunglasses at nighttime and she shares that she couldn’t see well. She kept peering over the top of her glasses to see the audience and their reaction was laughter and applause. At that moment, she remembers instantly being hooked on performing on stage. From then on, she knew she wanted to dance.

Her teacher taught Mexican folk dancing and traditional Spanish dancing, which Jackie primarily did. In her hometown, there is a yearly fiesta that occurs called Old Spanish Days which is a celebration of the culture of the area. Jackie has always been involved in the fiesta, but when she was 16, she auditioned to be fiesta spirit and got the part. In this role, she represented the city and got to lead the parade, which was a very big honor for her.

Later on, she started teaching within the studio and she shares that she discovered flamenco after seeing it performed in Los Angeles. “I immediately said, ‘What is that? I need to do that, whatever that is I need to do that because it just spoke to me,” Jackie recalls, laughing. She and her dance mates would drive to go and take flamenco lessons, and she has been doing it ever since. She shares that despite the big milestones in her life like marriage and children, she was still continuing to teach and dance. Once she moved to Washington with her family, Jackie looked around the area for flamenco studios so she could continue her craft. She later started her own company Dances of Spain and has been teaching there ever since.

When asked about what her favorite thing about dance is, Jackie shares that she wouldn’t know what to do without it. In her experience, dance requires lots of physical and mental strength and she relates this to the connection between the upper body and lower body in flamenco dancing. She also shares that one of the things that she loves about flamenco specifically is its longevity. “As long as you can stand and move, you can still dance flamenco,” Jackie says. The small movements in flamenco allow the mover to completely take control of their emotion and that is something that Jackie really loves about this style of dance.

Because Jackie owns her own dance studio, she has found that one of her biggest struggles as a teacher is being able to give her students what they need. She shares that she learned flamenco in an untraditional way, meaning in the U.S., as others travel to Spain to get fully immersed in the culture. When learning flamenco, she just learned choreography, not the connection and feeling of the music. Because of this, Jackie didn’t understand what that all meant when she was teaching. In the end, she just wants to be able to explain flamenco clearly to her students and let them know the reasoning behind the movements they’re doing.

One of the biggest things that allowed Jackie to learn more about flamenco was asking questions when she was unsure. Because of this, she emphasizes the matter of being able to ask questions if dancers or teachers don’t understand something. She shares that in our time today, the internet has loads of information that dancers can turn to if they need help. She even says that she directs her own students to certain flamenco videos for reference as well. “Do your homework and really study your craft so that you really understand what it is that you’re doing,” she stresses.

While dance is slowly becoming more equal, Jackie would still love to see more men involved in dance, especially in flamenco. She shares that men play a big role in flamenco dance, as their movements are representatives of matadors and bullfights. Flamenco is a mixture of many different rich cultures coming from the southern tip of Spain, so men and women approach the movements in different ways which have been constantly evolving over the years.

Earlier this summer, Jackie just got done with her sixth annual flamenco showcase with Dances of Spain at Meydenbauer Theater on July 30th. Now in the fall, Jackie is hoping to focus more on the technical side of flamenco with her dancers in class. While running her studio, she also is a member of a non-profit, Espacio de Arte, where she is hoping to do some collaborations with other flamenco instructors in the area, so stay tuned for those announcements!

Be sure to check out the Dances of Spain website here for classes in flamenco dance!

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Getting to Know Director of Inventory Riley Hendrickson

Riley says that there are countless reasons why she loves working at Dancewear Center, but one of her top ones is the community that’s come along with the job. She appreciates that she gets to work in a comfortable space where young people are given the opportunity to learn and grow free of judgement and excessive pressure. “I’m supported, genuinely cared for, and encouraged to put myself first,” Riley says. She says that as a general manager, Samantha’s care for DWC’s employees shines through, allowing staff members to pay her kindness forward towards customers and community members.

A Community Member on Dance and Inclusivity

Name pronunciation: Rye-lee Hen-drick-son | Pronouns: she/they

By Madison Huizinga, DWC Blog Editor

Discussions of inclusivity in the dance world cannot be completely comprehensive if they don’t acknowledge how dancers with disabilities are treated in the industry. DWC Director of Inventory Riley Hendrickson shares her desire for dance spaces open to folks of all abilities and retells her own journey with dance and Dancewear Center. Read on to get to know this beloved member of the DWC team!

Riley started dancing ballet and tap around age three and expanded into contemporary, jazz, and hip hop genres throughout high school. After her first dance studio closed during her middle school years, she enrolled at Body Language Studio (formerly known as Cornerstone Studio). “It was very intimidating for me at first but I quickly found my people,” Riley says of switching studios.

“It was never about being the best and becoming a professional,” Riley says of her motive behind dancing. “It was a [opportunity] to be in my body, release energy, and find a group of people I could connect with.” Of all the genres Riley tried, tap is what stuck with her most. “Tap is my absolute favorite thing ever!” she says, sharing that she connects deeply with the rhythmic qualities of the dance style. While she’s taken a step back from dancing today, she’s enjoyed being involved in the local dance community in a new way through her role at Dancewear Center.

Riley points out that there are many outdated norms in the dance world, one of which is a lack of respect for children with both hidden and visible disabilities. “I’ve been recently exploring a late diagnosis of autism and when I look back, I can see how crucial dance was for my childhood,” Riley says. “I learned how to use my body and that not everything has to be spoken. I learned how much music and movement can be healing and uplifting, and was put into different social environments that allowed me to grow greatly as a person.” She believes that creating dance environments that are welcoming to those that don’t thrive in high-intensity, fast-paced class environments would help welcome more folks into the dance community. “Everyone should be able to dance no matter what!” Riley declares.

“[After] high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do,” Riley says. She had connected with Dancewear Center Owner and General Manager Samantha Weissbach through Body Language Studio and around the time of Riley’s graduation, Samantha had bought DWC. Seeking employees to work at the store, Riley decided to throw her hat in the ring. She started out as a retail sales associate, before becoming a pointe shoe fitter, manager, and now director of inventory. “I have an odd amount of fun organizing and counting inventory,” she shares. “I manage all the buying and receiving for both [of DWC’s] locations while getting to work upfront with customers doing pointe shoe fittings, so I like the balance.”

“Similar to my dance journey, I had no idea where [this job] was going to take me, but it has been the best thing that could have happened to me,” Riley says proudly.

Outside of work, Riley enjoys recharging after days full of human interaction. “I try to focus on the little things that spark joy and relaxation for me: puzzles, video games, sometimes books, and anything you can find at a craft store, I will take a stab at,” she says. Riley especially enjoys spending time outside in the spring and summer, when she can often be found on a beach or chilling in a hammock in the forest. When she envisions her future, she pictures creating a family and feeling relaxed and free in her garden home.

We’re so grateful to have Riley on the team here at DWC!

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