Courses
Instructor(s)
Dance Intensive
Street Dance Forms
Social Dance Forms
Lucie Baker
Lucie Baker is a dance artist, educator, and expressive arts facilitator based in Seattle, Washington. Her parents met in a community folk dance group so social dancing is in her bones. She loves social dance for its joy, community, and expansive self-expression. As a teacher, she strives to create a supportive environment where students can connect and explore. Her classes integrate her background in western concert dance and social dance with her love of somatics and anatomy. From a young age she was surrounded by a diversity of dance styles including swing, ballet, modern, balkan folk dance, and more. Her curiosity for movement led her to pursue a career as a professional performer and choreographer in New York City and abroad working with many notable artists including Jane Comfort, Tamar Rogoff, Erica Essner, Phantom Limb and Seattle Opera. In her training, she earned a BFA from the Juilliard School and an MFA from the University of Washington. After many years of performing, creating, and teaching, she became interested in the intersection of dance and mental health and received her expressive arts therapy training at the Tamalpa Institute, founded by Anna and Daria Halprin. She continues to develop her artistic practice alongside while also serving as a faculty member at Cornish College of the Arts, University of Washington and Century Ballroom.
Improvisational Practices
Alia Swersky
Alia Swersky is a movement artist, performer and educator deeply engaged in dance improvisation, durational time-based art, film, site-specific work, and environmental installation. She is an artist and an educator with degrees from Cornish College of the Arts and an MFA in dance from the University of Washington.
Her artistic path over the last two decades has been shaped by this yearning for deep and meaningful connections with people and places. As a co-creator, ritual maker, and a “horizontal” director, Alia seeks to touch others through dance, somatic presence, vulnerability, and fierceness. Her work ranges from full audience participation to intimate acts of One-to-One performances, site-specific dances for film and live performance, as well as durational time-based art that includes physical acts of endurance, repetition, stillness, subtlety, singing, soft energetic grace, abstraction, caricature, and a deconstruction of clichés such as extreme high femme expressions. Her teaching and art-making seek to create practices that embrace endurance on stage and in life as acts of resistance, resilience, release, and beauty.
As a performer, Alia has also toured nationally and internationally as a member of the LeGendre Performance Group and has performed in the works with many Seattle artists, some of which include The Maureen Whiting Company, Khambatta Dance Company, Jurg Koch, KT Niehoff, and Salt Horse.
As an educator, she has taught at Cornish College of the Arts for sixteen years and in the Seattle community at Velocity’s Strictly Seattle Festival, and the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation (SFDI). She was a long time Co-artistic director of Dance Art Group (DAG), a non-profit organization that promotes the practice and appreciation of dance and somatic education in the Seattle area, including the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation.
Screendance
Workshop: Emerging Dance Teacher Training
Lex Ramierez
Lex Ramirez (she/her) is a queer, Latinx teaching artist from Oakland, CA who has been teaching dance in Seattle, WA since 2013. She has an extensive background in teaching artistry, community engagement, program creation and DEI work. Her experience includes working and consulting for Seattle Theatre Group's education and community engagement programs as well as teaching numerous workshops for MoPop, University of Washington, Cornish, Seattle U, Seattle Public Schools and more. Lex has a keen understanding of what it takes to be a successful teacher in both dance and program facilitation. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge and space to support emerging teachers.
House Foundation with Majinn
Majinn
Majinn is a queer, disabled, mixed Black dance artist and educator who utilizes their training in multiple dance forms to find and express their whole self. They believe that to be the best dancer and person they can be they need to continuously push their own comfort zone. Majinn works to help guide people in becoming more confident and connected in their bodies, find joy in their movement and be able to speak their voices primarily through Black social dance forms. One of Majinn’s biggest goals in dance is to spread the histories of Black social dance forms in and out of academia so that the cultures are learned and more respected. They also aim to give back to the communities that these art forms were created from through any way they can. Majinn’s art is for them and the communities they come from, always striving to be authentically themselves in their movement and work You can find Majinn under Majinn_Mike on Instagram
Courses Taught
Dance for Musical Theater
Jimmy Shields
I was born into a military family in Honolulu, HI and moved to the Pacific Northwest as a toddler. Already singing and dancing by the age of two, I began my formal dance training at the age of 8 while attending Elk Plain School of Choice, an arts elementary school that allowed me to study all disciplines of dance.
Over the years, my strong passion for music & the arts has given me the opportunity to sing and share the stage with the likes of Sugar Ray, Keith Sweat, (the REAL) Lady-A, Kim Archer and Tiffany Wilson. Singing has also allowed me to perform for the Seattle Seahawks Season Opener and the Make a Wish Foundation.
If you are local to the Seattle area, you may have seen me acting on stage at Village Theatre, Tacoma Musical Playhouse, or ACT Theatre. I’ve also directed and choreographed for Showtunes Theatre Company, Seattle Repertory Theatre, The 5th Avenue Theatre, Village Theatre, Theatre Puget Sound and Tacoma Arts Live.
On this site you will get to see all sides of me. Be it through my words, my music, or my movement, I hope I make you feel something.
Pre-Ballet (Saturday)
Creative Movement (Saturday)
Contact Improvisation
Alia Swersky
Alia Swersky is a movement artist, performer and educator deeply engaged in dance improvisation, durational time-based art, film, site-specific work, and environmental installation. She is an artist and an educator with degrees from Cornish College of the Arts and an MFA in dance from the University of Washington.
Her artistic path over the last two decades has been shaped by this yearning for deep and meaningful connections with people and places. As a co-creator, ritual maker, and a “horizontal” director, Alia seeks to touch others through dance, somatic presence, vulnerability, and fierceness. Her work ranges from full audience participation to intimate acts of One-to-One performances, site-specific dances for film and live performance, as well as durational time-based art that includes physical acts of endurance, repetition, stillness, subtlety, singing, soft energetic grace, abstraction, caricature, and a deconstruction of clichés such as extreme high femme expressions. Her teaching and art-making seek to create practices that embrace endurance on stage and in life as acts of resistance, resilience, release, and beauty.
As a performer, Alia has also toured nationally and internationally as a member of the LeGendre Performance Group and has performed in the works with many Seattle artists, some of which include The Maureen Whiting Company, Khambatta Dance Company, Jurg Koch, KT Niehoff, and Salt Horse.
As an educator, she has taught at Cornish College of the Arts for sixteen years and in the Seattle community at Velocity’s Strictly Seattle Festival, and the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation (SFDI). She was a long time Co-artistic director of Dance Art Group (DAG), a non-profit organization that promotes the practice and appreciation of dance and somatic education in the Seattle area, including the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation.
Alchemy for Pleasure: Embodying Expressive Arts Therapy through Creativity and Movement Course
Jessica Jobaris
Jessica Jobaris is a Seattle-based choreographer whose dance-theatre works warp perception, guiding audiences to reconsider what is sacred and what is profane. In 2010, she launched Jessica Jobaris & General Magic, a dance-theatre company dedicated to nurturing artistic risk and community connection through dance. Jessica has taught nationally and internationally, receiving funding for her works from city, state, and corporate organizations. Jessical also holds a MA in Counseling Psychology (LMHCA) from The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, and runs a private practice in Seattle.
Workshop: Alchemy for Pleasure: Embodying Expressive Arts Therapy through Creativity and Movement
Jessica Jobaris
Jessica Jobaris is a Seattle-based choreographer whose dance-theatre works warp perception, guiding audiences to reconsider what is sacred and what is profane. In 2010, she launched Jessica Jobaris & General Magic, a dance-theatre company dedicated to nurturing artistic risk and community connection through dance. Jessica has taught nationally and internationally, receiving funding for her works from city, state, and corporate organizations. Jessical also holds a MA in Counseling Psychology (LMHCA) from The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, and runs a private practice in Seattle.
Amapiano Fundamentals
Kiné Camara
Kiné Camara is a dance artist and educator based in Seattle, WA, but you can often find her in Paris and Johannesburg as well.
She began dancing traditional Senegalese styles professionally at 8 years old, and teaching in 2005, under the direction of her father, Master Drummer and Dancer, Ibrahima Camara, of the National Ballet of Senegal. In 2019, she shifted gears to the world of Afro, training in a mix of styles including Afrobeats, Azonto, Ndombolo, Amapiano, and Afrohouse.
She loves bringing her passion for dance to the stage, and has performed with artists including Uncle Waffles, Asake, Tiwa Savage, Sauti Sol, and Archie. She has also dance and hosted with nightlife events such as the “Tune4Tune” series at Neumos, and “Private Piano” both in collaboration with KEXP DJ, Lace Cadence.
She is currently teaching Amapiano classes, and has taught with organizations like The University of Washington, the University of Florida, Vashon Island Center for the Arts, The Overlake School, The Union Cultural Center, Whatcom Community College and Bellingham Repertory Dance.
House Foundation with Majinn
Majinn
Majinn is a queer, disabled, mixed Black dance artist and educator who utilizes their training in multiple dance forms to find and express their whole self. They believe that to be the best dancer and person they can be they need to continuously push their own comfort zone. Majinn works to help guide people in becoming more confident and connected in their bodies, find joy in their movement and be able to speak their voices primarily through Black social dance forms. One of Majinn’s biggest goals in dance is to spread the histories of Black social dance forms in and out of academia so that the cultures are learned and more respected. They also aim to give back to the communities that these art forms were created from through any way they can. Majinn’s art is for them and the communities they come from, always striving to be authentically themselves in their movement and work You can find Majinn under Majinn_Mike on Instagram
Courses Taught
Hip Hop Foundation with Majinn
Majinn
Majinn is a queer, disabled, mixed Black dance artist and educator who utilizes their training in multiple dance forms to find and express their whole self. They believe that to be the best dancer and person they can be they need to continuously push their own comfort zone. Majinn works to help guide people in becoming more confident and connected in their bodies, find joy in their movement and be able to speak their voices primarily through Black social dance forms. One of Majinn’s biggest goals in dance is to spread the histories of Black social dance forms in and out of academia so that the cultures are learned and more respected. They also aim to give back to the communities that these art forms were created from through any way they can. Majinn’s art is for them and the communities they come from, always striving to be authentically themselves in their movement and work You can find Majinn under Majinn_Mike on Instagram
Courses Taught
Creative Movement (Saturday)
Pre-Ballet (Saturday)
Creative Process
Alia Swersky
Alia Swersky is a movement artist, performer and educator deeply engaged in dance improvisation, durational time-based art, film, site-specific work, and environmental installation. She is an artist and an educator with degrees from Cornish College of the Arts and an MFA in dance from the University of Washington.
Her artistic path over the last two decades has been shaped by this yearning for deep and meaningful connections with people and places. As a co-creator, ritual maker, and a “horizontal” director, Alia seeks to touch others through dance, somatic presence, vulnerability, and fierceness. Her work ranges from full audience participation to intimate acts of One-to-One performances, site-specific dances for film and live performance, as well as durational time-based art that includes physical acts of endurance, repetition, stillness, subtlety, singing, soft energetic grace, abstraction, caricature, and a deconstruction of clichés such as extreme high femme expressions. Her teaching and art-making seek to create practices that embrace endurance on stage and in life as acts of resistance, resilience, release, and beauty.
As a performer, Alia has also toured nationally and internationally as a member of the LeGendre Performance Group and has performed in the works with many Seattle artists, some of which include The Maureen Whiting Company, Khambatta Dance Company, Jurg Koch, KT Niehoff, and Salt Horse.
As an educator, she has taught at Cornish College of the Arts for sixteen years and in the Seattle community at Velocity’s Strictly Seattle Festival, and the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation (SFDI). She was a long time Co-artistic director of Dance Art Group (DAG), a non-profit organization that promotes the practice and appreciation of dance and somatic education in the Seattle area, including the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation.
Workshop: Emerging Dance Teacher Training
Lex Ramierez
Lex Ramirez (she/her) is a queer, Latinx teaching artist from Oakland, CA who has been teaching dance in Seattle, WA since 2013. She has an extensive background in teaching artistry, community engagement, program creation and DEI work. Her experience includes working and consulting for Seattle Theatre Group's education and community engagement programs as well as teaching numerous workshops for MoPop, University of Washington, Cornish, Seattle U, Seattle Public Schools and more. Lex has a keen understanding of what it takes to be a successful teacher in both dance and program facilitation. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge and space to support emerging teachers.