Merce Cunningham (Image: Merce Cunningham Trust)

Ella Mahler is lying on her back on the marley floor, stock-still, like a bear has been chasing her and playing dead is her last resort. But then, suddenly, she gets up and scurries across the vinyl floors of the back studio of Capitol Hill’s Velocity Dance Center. In hurried movements, she lifts her knees up, combat-style, only to later duck and then balance gracefully on one leg, outsmarting an invisible assailer purely with poise.

Mahler, a Seattle-based dancer, choreographer and Velocity’s 2019 Made in Seattle Artist, is running through the movements of her solo choreography Absolute. Less than two weeks to go before showtime, December 14th. Mahler is one of the nine dancers performing newly created choreographies for MERCE 100: Seattle Artists Respond to Merce, a four-day long, Capitol Hill-centered celebration of and response to the centennial of world-famous dancer and Washington native Merce Cunningham (1919 – 2009), running December 13th through 16th.

Cunningham, who was born in Centralia and studied at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, became one of the most influential artists of the 20th century thanks to his radical, innovative approach to dance, for example by using dice and other chance-based processes to decide how his dancers would move. Continue reading →

Tonya Lockyer (Image: Bettina Hansen with permission to CHS)

Tonya Lockyer began as a touring artist and educator, eventually finding her roots in Seattle after joining Velocity Dance Center as an artist and completing graduate school at the University of Washington. She went on to be Velocity’s programs and communications manager, and eventually its executive director.

In June, Lockyer announced she will be stepping down from her post this fall after 16 years with the organization.

Entering Velocity in a time of instability, debt, and amid an emergency capital campaign, Lockyer implemented operational and artistic direction and, in just two years, had Velocity operating in the black.

With accolades like the Mayor’s Artz Award, Tonya’s tenure has brought national visibility to the dance center and its residents, acting as the “portal to Seattle dance,” and a destination for touring choreographers. Her leadership influenced exceptional growth in audiences and artist residencies, with consistently sold-out community events and classes.

CHS spoke with Lockyer about how she got involved with Velocity and Seattle’s dance scene, her proudest moments as Artistic Executive Director, the importance of dance for our community, and what’s next for her.

How did you get involved with Velocity?: When I first moved to Seattle, I was teaching and I ran into a Seattle choreographer and said that I was moving to Seattle. She said, “Seattle is great, and my friend KT Niehoff needs someone to stay in her house!” So the very first place I ever lived was in the home of the co-founder of Velocity, KT Niehoff. Continue reading →

In an underground dance studio on 15th Ave E, you can find Ilana Rubin — hair wisped and face flush — running around or behind her desk fresh out of one workout or another, her office strewn with Halloween decorations.

Rubin runs Dance Underground, a 14-year business running a 45-year-old dance studio. The studio was first opened by Shirley Jenkins when it was called Strong Winds Wild Horses. In fact, it’s the very place Rubin met her partner more than two decades ago doing Argentine tango. Rubin herself has been a dancer all her life, harking back to her roots in Israel.

The space itself contains two spacious studios with christmas lights lining the wall-length mirrors. It certainly has a homey, lived-in feel to it through the walls and the ceiling but it’s welcoming.

“To me it’s just a part of that old Seattle that we keep talking about that’s disappearing,” said Barb Duff who uses the space for BaDi dance and exercise. “From what we do for a living, you’re just not going to find a 2,000-square-foot, unobstructed studio with a hard sprung wood floor anywhere with these cookie-cutter Ikea showrooms.”

Duff and her BaDi coworker Dina Love came to Seattle from the East Coast a while back. For them, the studio is reminiscent of New York’s “gritty dance studios” because of its ambiance. Continue reading →

Velocity Dance Center has fueled the careers of dancers and artists and provided a space and classes on Capitol Hill for anyone with an inspiration to move their bodies.

“It would be very detrimental to the entire city if it wasn’t here,” Kate Wallich, a dancer, choreographer, director, and teacher in Velocity’s community told CHS.

The dance center’s entire 2016 season has been celebrating Velocity. The Fall Kick-Off offers audiences a way to relive the season and experience a taste of the upcoming 2017 season. Performances are at 7:30 PM Sept. 23-25 at wthe Velocity Founders Theater, 1621 12th Ave.

About ten years ago, Velocity’s longevity was tested, but the community’s support gave the center a breath of new life. The center hit some rocky ground financially in 2007 when the Odd Fellows Hall at 10th and Pine, its home since 1996, was sold and the nonprofit’s rent was hiked. Continue reading →

  Tonya Lockyer, artistic director of Capitol Hill’s Velocity Dance Center and co-chair of the Capitol Hill Arts District, is trying to help keep Capitol Hill as a focus of arts energy, though it is getting increasingly difficult. She said that in a survey of the district’s artistic community, many dancers and performers want to live on the Hill to be a part of the performer community, but the cost of living here is making it ever more difficult.

One way to try and rise above that is to give emerging performers an opportunity to show their stuff. That’s what Velocity does through its annual Bridge Project. The 2016 edition takes place next week at the 12th Ave studio.

The Bridge Project started in 2006, Lockyer said, though at the time it had a different model. When she arrived in 2011, it transitioned to its current state, giving four choreographers who are either new to Seattle, or have been working here for fewer than three years, a chance to produce a show.

Lockyer says Seattle is on the rise in the dance world.

“We’re drawing people to Seattle from around the country because we’re the new hotbed for dance,” she said.

Lockyer credits this to the city having two organizations, Velocity and On the Boards, dedicated to creating a community for dancers.

“(Velocity) was founded to create a Seattle dance scene, and that’s what it’s done over the past 20 years.” Lockyer said.

For the Bridge Project, the center gives each of the budding choreographers 45 hours of rehearsal time with a group of auditioned dancers over about a month. This allows the artists to rehearse five days a week, which Lockyer said is a rare opportunity in these days of limited funding.

It also gives the dancers technical and administrative support. At the end of the show, Lockyer said, the audience members get feedback cards, so they can tell the artists what they thought.

“This is like a big, beautiful gift for everyone,” said Stephanie Liapis, one of this year’s choreographers. “This feels like a really big opportunity to try some new things.”

Liapis, who studied at the UW before moving to New York, just relocated back to Seattle in August. All that moving got her thinking about displacement; the voluntary sort of displacement — moving to a new place and the freedom, and lack of freedom it can give a person.

“It’s my experience right now, and I’m really interested in it, so I’m trying to figure it out,” she said.

In her work, she said she gave the dancers some early ideas, but much of the work will be contributed from them, with her acting as more of an editor or curator. Continue reading →