Following the success of last year’s inaugural Community Dance-a-Thon, Metropolitan Ballet of Tacoma will hold the second annual fundraiser this Saturday at its studios. The 12-hour event offers community dance classes, including African dance, musical theater, modern, classical and Pilates.

Class participants ask friends and family to sponsor them per class taken, with all proceeds benefiting MBT; at the end at Grand Finale Dance Party will showcase all dancers for the sponsors.

According to the press release, the goal of the Dance-a-Thon is to gather professionals and students in a wide range of dance forms on the same day …

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Washington native Isaiah Spence, a dancer for artists such as Justin Bieber, Chris Brown and Kelly Rowland, will teach a Master Hip Hop Dance Class at the D.A.S.H. Center for the Arts this Friday night.

The class, for all ages with intermediate/advanced dance skills, is the first in the Center’s “Dances in Color” series of workshops highlighting the work of young African American choreographers. In August the guest teacher will be Anthony “Redd” Williams, who has danced and choreographed for Pink, Lady GaGa, Chris Brown and more.

The D.A.S.H. Center for the Arts offers classes in hip hop, modern …

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This weekend sees a contemporary dance concert unusual in a number of ways. Firstly, it’s put on by the Barefoot Collective, but features not only their professional work but that of Gig Harbor High School students as a result of free workshops given there recently by the group. And secondly, it’s not at a theater: Instead, the show is at an empty storefront space on Pacific Avenue, Tacoma, as part of the Spaceworks program.

The high school workshops are new to Barefoot, a contemporary dance collective which has been giving creative and unusual performances over the last few years …

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A few weeks ago I wrote a profile of a Seattle-based flamenco dancer, Savannah Fuentes, who has been bringing herself and international flamenco musicians to the New Frontier Lounge, of all places, as well as up and down Puget Sound cities. I wrote that Tacoma isn’t known for flamenco, and that’s true, but if I implied that it doesn’t have any, then I certainly didn’t mean to. Marisela Fleites has been teaching flamenco with Metro Parks and Washington Contemporary Ballet, as well as performing with her company Tacoma Flamenca, for a number of years now, and the company …

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This weekend you can see dancers moving to everything from the Beatles through Tim Burton to “Moulin Rouge” in “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,” the Tacoma Performing Dance Company’s Spring Concert at Stadium High. The company, part of the venerable Jo Emery Dance School, will premiere new works by artistic director Jo Emery (“Money,” staged to music by the O’Jays and “Almost Alice,” set to the Tim Burton movie score) as well as new work by choreographers Amity Howell-Sloboda (to four Beatles tunes) and Anna Herron (“The Color Green.”)

There’ll also be the can-can from the movie “Moulin Rouge,” and much more. …

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It’s the moment the dance community has been waiting for: The complete series of Robin Jaecklein’s “Furniture Dances,” at the SOTA theater this Friday and Saturday.

Over the last few years Jaecklein (who manages to combine a dancing and choreographic career with teaching at SOTA and managing an energetic young family) has been mounting these pieces one at a time – a rocking chair here, a bed there. The vibe is whimsical, with giant pieces of furniture based on Jaecklein’s own, elf-like costumes and mischievous gestures. The complete series of 11 (including “Couch,” “Bed,” “Chair,” “Chandelier,” “Table” and more) will …

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You don’t often get to see classical Indian dance in the South Sound – but this weekend you’ve got the chance. The Evergreen Orissi Dance Ensemble will join the Urvasi Dance Company and Fulbright-winning dance professor Ratna Roy for two performances of Orissi dance at Evergreen State College Friday and Saturday.

What’s Orissi? Originating from the tropical coastal state of Orissa in India, Orissi is one of the six classical Indian dance forms. It’s mostly a women’s dance, based around sinuous gestures with occasional leaps. Think of those curvy Indian temple sculptures and you’ll get the idea.

From the …

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There were five birds last Thursday evening at Tollefson Plaza, orange and black and bound with thick black cords. Played by dancers from BQDanza, the “birds” danced out a new piece by Tacoma choreographer Carla Barragan called “Thick”, inspired by the Gulf Coast oil spill and presented free in Tollefson as part of both ArtWalk and Spaceworks. They’ll be back next ArtWalk as well on Oct. 21 as part of the Arts Crush month of free events.

And that’s a good thing. “Thick” is well-designed, graceful and captures that particularly impotent sense of regret whenever one imagines all those land, sea and air creatures so devastated by the thick black gunk coating their world. Barragan’s dancers, clad in orange and black tunic and pants, roam the plaza, claiming it as their own. Read more »