Transforming lives through movement

The Young Dance Company started in Minneapolis when Maria Genné and Colleen Callahan brought students together to create and perform dance. Gretchen Pick joined in 2000 and is now the executive director.
“The mission of Young Dance is to transform lives through movement,” explained Pick.
Based in the Fairview Business Center (655 Fairview Ave. N. St. Paul), Pick notes, “Not everybody can come to our classes, and we believe dance is really powerful and really important, so we bring dance to people in their communities.”
Young Dance grew from a modern-focused class for ages 7-18, adding classes for younger children and different styles of dance.
The All Abilities programming started in 2010 when the sister of a Young Dancedancer, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheel chair, wanted to dance. The first All Abilities class, Adaptive Creative Dance, had five dancers with different diagnoses, all self-identifying as having a physical disability. “We felt like everyone was learning so much in the class it didn’t really feel like some of us were assisting others. It just felt like everyone was dancing together, so right away we framed our classes as: this is people with and without disabilities, dancing together. We want to integrate all abilities in the class,” said Pick.
For all dancers, “in a modern class, we’re learning modern dance, and we want to understand how to make that possible for everyone in that class to learn modern dance. In a Hip Hop class, we’re learning Hip Hop and we want to make it possible for everyone in that class to learn Hip Hop,” stated Pick.
A common misconception about All Abilities classes is “that the dancers without disabilities are assisting those with disabilities,” said Pick. “But all the dancers are working together. The dancers who might not identify as having a disability develop as dancers by learning how to dance with someone with a really different physicality, different neurotactical patterns, and their learning goes deeper.
She added, “We end up pushing a lot of boundaries in that class, redefining what dance is, and putting out into the world new possibilities of dance.”
Gabriel Rodreick co-teaches classes. Rodreick started a project called A Cripple’s Dance in 2018. “A live dance and live music production made of a mixed ability cast, every one who had a disability had spinal cord injuries, which is what I have,” said Rodreick. With that project on hold due to the pandemic, Rodreick joined Young Dance and continued his work in an educational setting.
“It’s let me open myself as a dancer more and deepen my relationship to dance, deepen my relationship to my body. I have kind of a fraught relationship with my body. I think that the dance that we do here is very therapeutic and cathartic for the grief that I hold in my body,” said Rodreick. “I think it’s also given me a place to build a career.”
Rodreick applauds Young Dance’s efforts, despite the challenges of full accessibility in the world. “I think this place is doing some pretty radical work,” “attempting to teach a welcoming philosophy of all different kinds of minds and bodies.”
For Rodreick, the organization’s commitment to inclusion is a powerful motivator. “The fact that they are trying to do that and putting the work in to make that happen is a really revolutionary act,” Rodreicksaid. “That’s a big reason why I keep coming back.”
Artistic director Anat Shinar oversees programming and about 40 teaching artists.”In order to have this mission to transform lives through movement, the idea is that we just want people to have a good experience dancing and being in their bodies, and that’s what we really believe that dance is about,” said Shinar.
Her values have flourished. “I realized that I am a person who likes to feel a little more community, and I like to feel like I have a home,” stated Shinar. “So when I found Young Dance it felt really natural to come into this space, and feel like I have this artistic home where my values feel like they make sense and where everybody just really believes in the best about dance.”
Shinar says the body-positive and person-positive environment, “impacts all parts of my life, how I am as a parent, and how I am as a teacher, and how I am as a dancer, and how I am as as human. Being a part of Young Dance has taught me to be patient and it’s taught me to be whole and well rounded.”
She added, “It’s a space where I feel welcomed and invited and where I work hard. And also when I make mistakes it’s okay. That’s true in the studio and I take that with me in life. I try to teach that to other people, too.”
For Shinar, “It really just feels like a nice place to be, and it feels really simple.”
Lucia Bodling is a junior at Central High School in St. Paul, interested in journalism.