EVERETT — Students at The Dance School want other young people to know how great dancing can be.
The school’s fourth annual “I Love to Dance” performance will be presented twice on Saturday at Everett Community College.
The nonprofit school has been located in the former Betty Spooner ballet studio on Rockefeller Avenue in downtown Everett since 2006. Classes there include ballet, jazz, modern dance, tap, musical theater, hip-hop and other genres. The school’s faculty include university trained and experienced professional dancers.
“I Love to Dance” will feature dances performed by guest artists as well as the school’s top students, many who have choreographed their own solo pieces.
Among The Dance School’s senior students are Jordyn Brock, 17, of Marysville Getchell High School, Kaitlyn Bostrom, 18, of Granite Falls High, and Rowan Wells, 17, of Everett High. All three also are Running Start students at EvCC, and all three hope to pursue dance on the university level.
“The performance Saturday should encourage kids who are thinking about learning to dance,” Jordyn said. “I love ballet, and it took me awhile to figure it out.” Jordyn plans to attend Cornish School of the Arts before applying to join a ballet company.
Kaitlyn, also plans to attend Cornish to study modern dance. The dance she will perform Saturday is “a modern and (Bob) Fosse mix” set to the Offspring’s “Can’t Get My Head Around You.”
“Dance has helped me so much,” Kaitlyn said. “I started dancing just as I was entering puberty. I had to figure out my body because I was like a baby giraffe. Kids go through awkward ages but they need to know they can still dance.”
Rowan hopes to study dance and other topics at either Yale or the University of Washington. Her performance piece is a contemporary and somewhat improvisational routine set to classical music.
“Being able to study choreography and create dances of our own is essential to our growth as dancers,” Rowan said. “It is fun to see the other kids grow and evolve.”
If you go
“I Love to Dance,” by The Dance School, will be performed at 4:30 and 7 p.m. March 4 in the Wilderness Room of the Henry M. Jackson Building at Everett Community College. Tickets are $10 each, available at www.tututix.com/client/thedanceschoolwa or at the door. The school’s year-end performance is June 23.
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