Inspiring a Lifelong Love of Dance Through Accessibility
Dance Fremont’s Karena Birk
By Madison Huizinga, DWC Blog Editor
Youngsters eager to learn dance in the greater Seattle area are always in luck, as the Pacific Northwest abounds with high-quality dance studios eager to take on more students. However, adults with the same enthusiasm aren’t often as fortunate. Most dance studios across the region offer dance classes up until the age of 18, after which students are expected to move on to more professional training or get a non-dance-related job and move on with their lives. Luckily, Karena Birk and the rest of the team at Dance Fremont are providing high-quality, affordable dance education to youth and adults to foster the passion for dance in people of all ages and identities.
Karena began dancing at Spectrum Dance Theater at age three, eventually moving over to Cornish where she did the bulk of her training. She danced with the Colorado Ballet before wrapping up her college degree. Karena later danced with the ARC Dance Company in Seattle, predominantly focusing on ballet, modern, and jazz. Around the same time, she also began teaching. “Teaching fed me as a dancer, and vice versa” Karena says, explaining how teaching and performing held co-benefits for each other. After dancing with several other local companies, Karena decided to dedicate more of her time to teaching. She got her MFA in dance from Ohio State University, came back to Seattle, and continued teaching. Karena enjoyed being able to teach a wide range of individuals, from kids at dance studios to young adults in higher education. She prides herself in adopting an education model in which students get to understand their abilities and limits rather than imposing unrealistic expectations onto them, as traditional teaching models often do.
After nearly 20 years of running Dance Fremont, co-owners Vivian Little and Mary Reardon retired in 2015 and were considering closing the studio. Eager to keep the dance community alive, Steve Casteel bought the business and hired Karena as the dance school’s director, where she’s been ever since. After a few years as director, Dance Fremont was turned into a nonprofit organization, which has enabled the studio to have more unique opportunities to support the community.
Dance Fremont’s mission is to “inspire a lifelong love of dance in each student in a nurturing atmosphere full of joy and creativity.” Karena shares that the studio strives to “provide quality ballet and modern dance education to all who are interested.” It’s important to Karena and the rest of the Dance Fremont staff to provide dance education to all regardless of economic status, race, gender expression, and more. Classes range from youth programs for three-year-old students, all the way up to pre-professional training for students who want to dance in college or become professionals.
Something rather unique about Dance Fremont’s programming is its robust adult programming. “For adults, we offer beginning classes in ballet and modern, and drop-in intermediate/advanced ballet classes,” Karena shares. “We have everyone in there from professional dancers to people who start dancing as adults...It’s a wonderful community. I love working with them because they’re just there because they love to dance. As a dance teacher, there’s nothing better.” The adult open classes are held Monday through Saturday, with a Zoom option on Wednesday mornings.
The in-person open classes are taught by a different instructor every day of the week, so dancers get a variety of perspectives and get to find out what instructor fits best for them. Karena shares that the instructors for the open classes care immensely about their students. “I feel like one of the things that really distinguishes our open class teachers is that they really want to be here teaching these people,” Karena says.
Many dance studios in the Seattle area don’t offer classes for adults, as most are centered on providing rigorous training for youth. However, the benefits that children can reap from dance classes, including stress relief, creative expression, and community, are just as important for adults. “Everybody deserves to have dance classes,” Karena says. “There should be a space for people to continue dancing and continue dancing in an environment that really values what [they] have to say.”
An exciting development at Dance Fremont is it offering its Zoom adult open ballet classes as “pay if you can, pay what you can.” Dance Fremont made this change to provide more access to classes for adult dancers, as many lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. “A lot of people in the dance world were hit really hard,” Karena points out. Additionally, for in-person open ballet classes Dance Fremont is offering its pay-what-you-can Community Class Card, a donation-funded card in which dancers can choose the amount they pay for classes. “The donation support that we receive as an organization will cover the rest of the cost of [the classes],” Karena shares. “That’s something that we hope to be able to continue long-term and not just while the pandemic is still going on.”
Accessibility to classes is of the utmost importance to Karena, sharing that she “would rather be here for people” and have them take classes at the rate they can afford than feel like access is shut off to them. “There are a lot of issues in the dance world, especially the ballet world about accessibility, [particularly] with race, gender identity, and body type. Another big component is economic accessibility...I feel like this is at least one way we can start chipping down some of those barriers,” she says.
Karena points out that the world of ballet and modern dance is predominantly Eurocentric, and that moving forward “the beauty of the diversity of the world around us” ought to be embraced. “I would like to see dance made more economically available to people and for people to feel welcomed in their identities,” Karena shares of her vision in the dance world. Through providing affordable access to high-quality dance education to students of all ages, it’s clear that Karena and the rest of the team at Dance Fremont are taking a step in that direction.
