Submitted by The Washington Center for the Performing Arts
Ballet Northwest partners with the Washington Center for the Performing Arts to present the Fifth Annual Olympia Dance Festival on Saturday March 1, 2014. Dance groups from the South Puget Sound area come together to share the stage during the weekend. Each group will rehearse with Washington Center production staff, giving them professional level experience at Olympia’s premier theater.
The program for the festival’s Mainstage performance includes two special guests: Ashani Dances and The Stone Dance Collective from Seattle. Taking place on Saturday, March 1, 2014 at 7:30pm at the Washington Center, the performance is open to the public and gives each group an opportunity to showcase their talents in ballet, modern, tap, jazz, Irish, and swing dance.
The event is designed to be a celebration of dance in Olympia for the entire community and will be great fun for all ages. Participating dance groups include; Ballet Northwest, Centralia Ballet Academy, Comerford School of Irish Dance, Debbie’s Dance, Etc., Olympia Dance Center, Random Acts of Dance Collective (RADCO), Slieveloughane Irish Dancers, Southwest Washington Dance Ensemble, Studio West Dance Theater and Sunday Night Swing. These groups will have the opportunity to take master classes with the Artistic Directors of the guest companies, Iyun Ashani Harrison (faculty, Cornish College of the Arts) and Eva Stone (faculty, Pacific Northwest Ballet School).
NEW THIS YEAR: Master Classes with professional dancers are open to the public. The classes take place at the Washington Center’s Black Box Theater on Sunday, March 2nd and are led by professional dancers. Attendees should dress to dance and reserve their spots quickly with the Washington Center Box Office as space is limited. The March 2nd schedule is as follows:
- 12:00-2:00 Modern w/BodyVox from Portland
- 2:15-4:15 African w/Manimou from Seattle
- 4:30-6:30 Hip-Hop w/Markeith Wiley from Seattle
Tickets to the Mainstage performance and individual Master Class are $10, plus $3.00 service fee, and are available through the Washington Center for the Performing Arts. Performance tickets can also be purchased directly from the participating dance groups.
More information can be found by visiting www.balletnorthwest.org/olympiadancefestival.html or calling the Washington Center Box Office at 360-753-8586.
About Ashani Dances
Ashani Dances is a Seattle-based dance company founded in the summer of 2011 and directed by Iyun Ashani Harrison. The premise of Ashani Dances is to explore places where ‘finesse’ confront raw athleticism and ‘beauty’ distorts into palpable emotional expression. The company creates vivid theatrical imagery that both entertains and provokes thought – offering voyeuristic glimpses into the passions of everyday life. The eclectic choreography of Ashani Dances is grounded in the traditions of modern dance, classical ballet, and celebrates Africanist movement aesthetics: the result is an exciting hybrid dance form.
About The Stone Dance Collective
Eva Stone’s dance company originated in London, England in 1993 and became a permanent part of the Seattle/Eastside dance community in 1995. Her approach to choreography evolved from learning the art form in reverse (choreography before technique) and is unique with its intent based in humor and authentic human connection and emotion. Her work has been presented at On the Boards, Men in Dance, the ArtsEdge Festival, Bumbershoot and the Seattle International Dance Festival, where she has also served as a guest curator. Her work has been commissioned throughout the Northwest by companies such as Spectrum Dance Theater, Seattle Dance Project, Bellingham Repertory Dance, Whidbey Island Dance Theatre, Peninsula Dance Theatre, and ARC Dance and has been seen as far afield as Europe and Russia. As a commissioned choreographer for Regional Dance America/Pacific she has made works for South Bay Ballet in Los Angeles and Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre.
About Ballet Northwest
Since 1970, Ballet Northwest has been a community-based group dedicated to promoting, teaching, and preserving the art of dance in Southwestern Washington. The company offers educational opportunities for local dancers as well as outreach throughout the community.
About the Washington Center for the Performing Arts
The Washington Center for the Performing Arts, South Puget Sound’s largest performing arts facility, is committed to providing a wide variety of entertainment and cultural activities for the residents of four counties. Our multi-purpose facility contains a 983-seat proscenium theater with four seating levels and adjacent lobby spaces, as well as a smaller Stage II black box theater with its own lobby.
Opened in 1985, the facility has played host to thousands of events, with over 2,000,000 people crossing our threshold. However, its history did not start in 1985. The Washington Center is really the grandchild of the Liberty Theater, a 1924 vaudeville house which stood on the same ground the Washington Center does today. The Liberty Theater was renovated and refurbished in 1948, becoming the Olympic Theater movie house. The Olympic was then taken down to just a few exterior walls and completely rebuilt as The Washington Center. While the building’s facade still retains elements of the 1924 architecture, the interior is contemporary and modern.
