Preview Show
I’d like to talk about something called Twin Cities Dance Collaborative (TCDC). It was an organization that was 100% Mykala’s idea, an organization whose goal was to assemble a dance company in reaction to the competition dance scene. You see, competition dance drives the schedules, choreography, stylistic choices, and revenue of a majority of dance studios. Students pay for the privilege of being judged on their dancing ability. They pay for costumes. They pay for choreography. (By they, I mean their parents.) They compare themselves to their peers.
Competition is a more potent motivator than recital, because of the peer and professional judgement. Yet somewhere in the mix of money, pageant, and vapidity, something was missing. So Mykala asked a critical question: in the absence of the malevolent competition-motivation, how do you compel young dancers to strive for virtuosity AND do something that gives back rather than takes away?
Her solution was Twin Cities Dance Collaborative. Over two seasons of rehearsals and shows, dancers from studios in the metro area got together to learn from great choreographers (my wife included) and deliver beautiful shows to appreciative audiences. 100% of proceeds benefitted area charities (for example Second Harvest Heartland).
Mykala took out the barbs and transformed the anxiety of preparing for judgement into pure motivation anticipating the joy of performance. She did this while redirecting the flow of money away from her organization and toward worthy causes.
This picture was taken at the Loft Stage in Woodbury, during the preview performance for TCDC’s upcoming show. I remember this, of course. But for me, the moment in all of this that sticks out the most was at The O’Shaughnessy at the University of St. Kate’s, moments before the lights came up on the first big TCDC show. I couldn’t figure out why I was so nervous! I wasn’t the one who had been working for months and months on nights and weekends to teach all these eager young dancers. I wasn’t the one who did all the paperwork to make it happen (though I did help paste corrections into each individual program the night before the performance!).
Yet, nervous I was, waiting for the lights to come up. And then, LIGHTS. And dancing. And music. And it was all working. And even though TCDC is on an extended hiatus, I think my wife show herself something important: the improvements she pictures, the critiques she articulates, can be realized. They can move people.
