Brooke Evans on the Formation of Opus Performing Arts

By Madison Huizinga, DWC Blog Editor

After relocating from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Bellingham, Washington, Brooke Evans noticed that her newfound home was lacking something near and dear to her: high-quality dance. Through copious research and collaboration with local parents and dancers, Brooke and her fellow community members were able to build Opus Performing Arts: a robust dance school composed of experienced faculty and tasked with the mission of “fostering a lifelong love of dance.”

Like many youngsters, Brooke got involved with dance because her older sibling did it. She began her training at age three in her hometown of Santa Fe at the Santa Fe Dance Foundation, now known as the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. At age 23, Brooke got pregnant which required her to shift her life focus. She ended up moving to Bellingham, Washington, where she has been ever since.

“When I got up to Bellingham, I didn’t really know much about the dance community and had just had a baby and I didn’t go the traditional college route,” Brooke shares. “So I just started exploring the dance community a little bit and I found that there wasn’t as much dance here...I was expecting more and I was expecting a higher quality of dance.” Brooke realized that if she wanted to see a more expanded, potent dance community in Bellingham, she needed to be a part of building it.

Brooke became a co-founder of Bellingham Repertory Dance, a professional contemporary dance collective full of local dancers who are eager to challenge themselves and work in the industry. Brooke was a part of the founding member team, along with other local dancers who were looking for a professional level experience. Through Bellingham Repertory Dance, dancers have gotten the opportunity to work with renowned regional, national, and international choreographers like Mary Shelton Scott, Eva Stone, and Joshua Beamish. Bellingham Repertory Dance is currently going on its sixteenth season. Brooke left the dance collective after eleven seasons, but is gratified to see “this new generation really carrying it forward.”

Eventually, one of her sons expressed interest in beginning dance classes himself. She started looking in town for classes she saw fit for him, and wasn’t coming up with much. There were other parents in the Bellingham community who were feeling similarly, namely Opus owners Allan and Marie Redsone, who struggled to find a local dance school offering high-quality instruction for their own daughter. Allan and Marie networked out into the community, found a space and conducted research to bring their vision of Opus to fruition, finding Brooke in the process. After her first year of teaching at Opus, Brooke became the school’s artistic director to help sculpt and shape the school’s direction, again having the opportunity to build a stronger dance community in Bellingham.

Opus Performing Arts offers tap, contemporary, jazz, lyrical, hip hop, pointe, and ballet classes for both kids and adults. “I have just an incredible team of teachers,” Brooke gushes. Throughout the past year, Opus was also offering seminars on topics relating to mental health and self-compassion with ballet teacher and licensed mental health professional Rachel Coats as a way to provide more holistic services. Rachel will continue her self-compassion work with students this fall as Opus’ wellness consultant.

“We really put an emphasis on instruction at Opus and making sure that dancers are being really safe,” Brooke says. For instance, the school administers “pointe readiness” evaluations that students must pass before earning their pointe shoes. “It’s not something that you get, it’s something that you earn over time. It’s a step in your progress.”

Opus is excited to be returning to in-person classes in the fall, after nearly 14 months of online learning. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Brooke and the rest of the staff at Opus worked hard to communicate to students the importance of making dance feel like home regardless of where they are. She shares that the lack of community engagement, specifically due to canceling live performances, was a challenge for the Opus dancers. “I think the students are just so hungry to be not only getting in-person instruction again but also just to be with their friends and be in their community,” Brooke says. “There’s something so energizing about being with each other that we can’t feel over a computer screen.”

Another exciting update at Opus is that the school is moving to a bigger location with more studio space in 2022. “The space we’re looking at has the potential for five studios, three big ones and two small ones,” Brooke says. “It’s going to be really exciting when we get to move and then we get to offer more classes and provide more for the community as well.”

Ultimately, through her work with Opus Performing Arts and throughout the dance world, Brooke hopes to see dance professionals draw greater attention towards the self-compassion and mental health aspects of dance. “That’s something that I think is a missing part of the dancer’s health puzzle that we’re not quite up to par on,” she says. “‘Perfect’ doesn’t exist and it’s important to be able to have that positive self-talk, acknowledge your growth, and realize your wins.”

If it weren’t for the community building efforts of Brooke Evans and many others, Bellingham wouldn’t have the energetic dance scene that it has today. Since its founding, it’s clear that providing access to safe, high-quality dance instruction that can benefit a dancer for a lifetime will continue to be a top priority at Opus. “We want to instill a love of dance that [students] can carry forward through their lives,” Brooke says.

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Brooke Evans on the Formation of Opus Performing Arts