Getting to Know DWC Ambassador Maddie Walker
By Samantha Weissbach
Samantha Weissbach is a dancer, choreographer, and business professional born & raised in the Pacific Northwest. She has been dancing since the age of 2, and continues to dance and teach ballet and pointe professionally in the Greater Seattle Area. Samantha has trained at numerous establishments and programs; however, her primary training was received at Cornerstone Studio, Ballet Bellevue, and Emerald Ballet Theatre.
Currently, she serves as Executive Director of Intrepidus Dance, and is a company member with Intrepidus Dance and Forthun+Rome Dance Theater.
PICTURED: Maddie Walker, DWC Ambassador
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By Samantha Weissbach
“I’ve always been the type of person where I get super bored if I’m not challenged. I feel like I fell in love with ballet because I was constantly challenged: not just physically but mentally, you know? The terminology, remembering combinations, etc.” DWCA Maddie Walker shares. Maddie, a New Orleans native, started dancing young (around age 3) and after a little while ventured into the world of competitive gymnastics, cheerleading, and figure skating. Years later, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Maddie and her family relocated across the country to Gig Harbor, WA.
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First finding her home at Harbor Conservatory, and then trained under the direction of Jennifer Picart-Branner, a former dancer with the Frankfurt Ballet Company and guest artist with the Royal Ballet in London. Maddie beams as she remembers, “she is an amazing woman. She’s Filipina, tiny, and brown - which I identified with - and she was a professional dancer in Frankfurt, Germany, and the fact that she broke those barriers especially in the time that she did was huge, and I felt so inspired by that.”
Maddie shares that while she loved ballet, she found that a career in professional ballet wasn’t in the cards for her. “So then I started teaching!” she shares with a smile. Despite never being a competitive dancer herself, Maddie has found herself working primarily in the sphere of competitive choreography. “I love not only the competitive aspect but also the artistry, and working with dancers who want to push themselves past their limits.” She has developed a love for delving into this process with the young dancers she works with, and witnessing their growth as artists is incredibly rewarding.
In addition to teaching, Maddie has also danced professionally in the Seattle area; attending her first professional audition at age 24. Most recently, Maddie has danced with Noelle Price of PRICEarts N.E.W. ‘Noelle pushed me to dance very differently in this capacity and I crew quite a bit in that time - even as a choreographer!”
When asked what her favorite thing about dance is, Maddie says two things stand out to her. “Number one, I love that it gives you the ability to express how you’re feeling and what you want to say without having to ‘say it’.” Number two? “In that same sense I love that it’s a universal language.” Maddie loves to travel and has met so many amazing people in doing so; who oftentimes do not speak the same language. “You can understand someone through their movement and the way that they get into their own process. Dance is the one thing where your body is your vessel. It’s not a paintbrush, it’s not a pen or a pencil - it’s you. It’s just so personal.”
Next we asked, “what has been or is currently your biggest challenge within the realm of dance?” After a long exhale, Maddie replies, “I would have to say insecurities and anxieties. I know it’s pretty cliche but I think my insecurities have always stemmed from thoughts of ‘I’m not good enough. I’m not good enough to be a professional, I’m not good enough to be a choreographer. Am I the right body type? Am I going to fit into that company? I’m just a young adult dancing in my living room: faking it until I make it!’” Maddie shares that while she’s aware of the root cause, she’s still working through these feelings and insecurities.
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So what advice does Maddie have for dancers who may be experiencing these same struggles? “I’m realizing that the more I put myself out there and I push myself the more I achieve. I was never going to get there if I skated by and hid in the background. I had to start… ...pushing outside of my comfort zone.” Maddie shares that once she started accepting that this was who she was, and this is what she loves, no one could tell her otherwise - she was completely in control!
In addition to teaching and dancing professionally in the area, Maddie has a career working in the mental health field with at-risk youth. Being an empath, she has a hard time (and oftentimes finds that she can’t) disconnect from her job after clocking out. “One of the biggest things I’d like to see change [in the dance industry] is more conversation around mental health and normalizing that dancers are artists, and artists are innately very emotionally in-touch human beings. [I’ve found that] creative people feel more intensely than people who would identify as non-creative--and that’s okay! That’s what allows an artist to create these abstract beautiful things that other people might not normally think of. Therefore, it takes a little extra to get past certain things.”
In the same way that it can be difficult for Maddie to disconnect after a day working with her clients, she impresses that this same principle applies to our dance students. “It’s important to remember that when a dancer leaves a classroom, they aren’t going to stop thinking about that comment or correction that they are given in class,” which is why she thinks it’s so important to be aware as educators, leaders, choreographers, and directors of the language we use in the classroom. “Instead of saying ‘your feet look terrible’ try saying something like ‘hey, try stretching through your ankle a little bit more, you’re doing great working through your toes, but your ankle could use a little more stretch through it.’ that’s what I try to model in my classroom,” reframing her teaching around strength based and goal oriented strategies and language.
Another passion of Maddie’s is increasing diversity and accessibility within dance education. “Being half-black, it’s important to me that kids in marginalized communities have the opportunity to participate in these kinds of arts and creative outlets, that helps destigmatize [and normalize] feelings in a culturally appropriate and relevant way,” Maddie shares. She feels that “diversifying dance in terms of body type, gender, race, etc. shifts the environment,” oftentimes allowing people to more comfortably inhabit the skin they are in.
To read more about Maddie, check out the links below!