TU Dance: A smorgasbord of summer classes in their new expanded space

Feature and Photos by MARGIE O’LOUGHLIN

Photo right: McCall Atkinson, Sophia McLaughlin, Keenan Schember and Maia Fernandez outside the entrance to TU Dance Center.

Tucked behind the Subway Restaurant at 2121 University Ave. W. is a brick industrial building that formerly housed a cabinet factory. For the past five years, the repurposed space has been home to one of the Twin Cities’ most beloved dance companies: TU Dance.

TU Dance is named for its founders: Toni Pierce-Sands, who grew up in the Como Park and Summit-University neighborhoods, and her husband, Uri Sands from Miami, FL.

Pierce-Sands was a young stand-out at Minnesota Dance Theatre, where she and her sister Kristi were two of a handful of dancers of color in the 1970’s. “That experience, plus living in Minnesota at a time when it was much more homogeneous than it is now,” she said, “really made me long for racial diversity.”

Photo left: Students in the pre-professional program take a variety of classical ballet, modern, West African, repertory and workshop classes.

Pierce-Sands packed her bags and moved to NYC in the early 80’s, where she saw a rainbow of faces in the dance world. She joined the Alvin Ailey Company, the unquestioned premier, multi-racial, modern dance company in the country. After two years, Pierce-Sands moved to Europe and became a lead dancer with troupes in Cologne, Germany and Paris, France.

Returning to Ailey’s company in the early 90’s, she met Uri Sands: a gifted dancer and choreographer.They eventually married and on a visit home to St. Paul years later, Sands said,

“We should really think about building our lives here.”

“I realized New York was my heart home,” she reflected, “but St. Paul was my family home.”

Once here, the pair became, as Pierce-Sands noted, “two patrons of the arts.” She taught at the University of Minnesota, and they gave themselves a couple of years to envision what it was they could bring to the dance community that wasn’t here already.

“We went to see so many dance performances during that time,” Pierce-Sands said. “What was clear after the first one was that there were very few dancers of color on stage, and very few people of color in the audience.” Pierce-Sands continued, “The Twin Cities had grown so much racially in the years we’d been gone, but it wasn’t being emulated on the dance stage – at least not enough for us.”

That was about to change.

In little more than ten years, TU Dance has become a cornerstone of the Twin Cities dance community. With a full fall and spring performance schedule each year, the company brings a vibrant, highly trained and multi-racial company onto the venerable stages of the Ordway, O’Shaughnessy and Southern Theatres, among others.

“We always knew we would have a company and a dance center, we just weren’t sure which would come first, Pierce-Sands said.

Photo right: Destiny Anderson, 16, has been a student at TU Dance Center for the past two years. She came with no classical training, but with a love for movement and a serious hip hop practice. Destiny has been accepted into Dance Theatre of Harlem’s Summer Intensive, a rigorous ballet program  in New York City.

Once their 12 member company was established, Toni and Uri went about the business of starting their school. They rented several spaces but until Board member Leif Ericson found this location, there wasn’t a sense that they were home yet.

Phase I of their 2010 building renovation gave TU Dance a grand first-floor studio and other accommodations. With generous funding from the McKnight Foundation, construction is nearly finished on Phase II. A gracious second-floor studio with rooftop views, two new bathrooms, a sitting area, and gleaming office spaces will be ready in time for their expanded summer schedule.

Photo left: Camille Horstmann, a 17-year-old dance student at the St. Paul Conservatory, also studies at TU Dance Center six days/week. Recovering from an ankle injury, she came to class to observe even when she couldn’t participate. Camille has been accepted into this year’s Alvin Ailey Summer Intensive.

Alongside regular classes, TU Dance will be offering a smorgasbord experience called Summer Dance Intensives beginning July 6 through Aug. 22.  Special child and teen programming for new dancers introduces students to the joys of movement. The classes will help develop confidence around body awareness, coordination, balance, flexibility, and musicality. And they’re fun! For experienced dancers through age 23, there will be modern, ballet, African and repertory classes offered at the pre-professional level. Check out the website at www.tudance.org/summer for more information.

Observation Week is through June 13 at TU Dance, when children and adults can visit classes to get a sense for what they’re all about. Financial aid is available, and no one will be turned away for inability to pay. Dance apparel (there is a dress code) is provided through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

The name Pierce-Sands and Sands chose for their dance center is something one doesn’t come across every day: a triple entendre. TU is their combined signature, the “T” and the “U” from their first names. It’s a play on words and an invitation to dance. Lastly, the word tu, in French, is the familiar or personal form of the pronoun you.

The invitation to dance is extended to all members of the community, as is the invitation to enjoy watching dance as a performance art.

“We see ourselves as ambassadors of dance,” Pierce-Sands concluded, “and we love the idea of welcoming new people in.”