A Conversation on Promoting Young Dancers

By Nicole Barrett, DWC Blog Editor

The DWC Blog loves to highlight dancers and choreographers in the Seattle area. Because of this, we got the opportunity to speak with Christian West who is a newly graduated high school student who has put together a show coming on stage this November! Read on to learn more about Christian’s dance journey and what his show has in store!

Christian started dancing when he was in the first grade. He has been dancing at Spotlight Dance Center since he started and shares that he has taken some tap classes at Village Theater KidsStage. One of the main reasons why he started dancing was because he did musical theater, which is why he primarily started out with tap. He shares that his immense passion for dance outside of musical theater didn’t occur until his junior year of high school. “So, fairly new!” he says, laughing.

Christian has always been fascinated by dance and it is a pivotal part of his life. Dance has allowed him to view the world around him in ways that he wouldn’t have if he wasn’t as involved in dance. “[I’m] just constantly looking at people and the way that they move and how that's fascinating to me,” Christian shares.

All his dance training has been through Spotlight Dance Center and he shares that it feels like a home. “It’s definitely a big part of my dance upbringing,” he says. Modern dance is a specific style that he says means a lot to him and he shares that dancing at Spotlight is why he thinks it means so much to him. Through his own choreography, he has noticed that it is much more geared towards the performance bases of dance rather than the competition-based dance of other studios.

In late November, Christian is putting together a show dedicated to Kate Bush. He shares that he has been obsessed with her music for about four years ever since his sister showed her music to him. “She showed me all of her really weird music videos where she has all this modern dance, and that’s almost been like a spell, like it’s entrancing,” he recalls, smiling. The meaning of the music and her own dancing in her music videos is something that he gains inspiration from, specifically for this show.

This show is formatted like a double feature where the first act is a showcase of pieces to Kate Bush songs and the second act is its own piece to a concept suite on one of her albums Hounds of Love, which is on the B side of the record called The Ninth Wave. The plot of the concept piece is that she is drowning and it explores themes of rebirth, grief, death, life and love. “It’s a very cathartic human sound, all of her music is, and it’s such a heavy subject matter that we’re having so much fun with,” he shares, laughing.

Christian loves incorporating small, specific movements in his choreography, so he shares that Bob Fosse, Pina Bausch and Mark Morris are some choreographers that inspire him as well. Aside from big-name choreographers, Christian seeks inspiration from co-choreographer of this piece Pilar Galdamez. Both have danced at Spotlight Dance Center together and he says that they can connect in ways of understanding one another very easily because of it.

Christian and Pilar’s choreographic process involves many different aspects. Most of the process is expressing a vision to one another and then choreographing it themselves and placing it on the dancers. But, they also use a unique technique that is used by one of the teachers at Spotlight where they tell the dancers to improv and then film them dancing. “We then watch the way their bodies move and the poses that their bodies naturally fit into to try and make it seem as natural and authentic for the dancers to perform as possible,” he says.

When asked about what he enjoys about the style of modern itself, he shares that he appreciates the time that it was born and how much it changed the dance world. He loves the pure innovation of what modern dance has done and the authenticity of what it means and looks like in every dancer’s body. He shares that there is a specific piece in his show where there are multiple different dancers in pointe shoes, and bare feet doing what they love and feel good in their bodies. Christian and Pilar’s main goal for this piece is to integrate personality and just being a person into their choreography which is how they are trying to bring light to modern dance.

“She’s 16 years old and I’m 18, so we’ve never done anything like this before,” Christian shares. “This is a huge project to take on.” Just simply creating everything and being in a room full of people and telling them what to do is something that he shares has been a struggle for the both of them. In light of the pandemic, he shares that any struggles that they have faced while putting this production together have come as a hidden blessing. All of the dancers that they are putting into the show are close friends or attend Spotlight, which has helped them in the long run.

When asked about what aspect he is most excited for people to see in this show, Christian shares that he is really excited for people to see something that he loves and hopes that they love it too. He hopes that people can be as entranced and fascinated by the music as he is. He is also really excited to share younger people’s viewpoints on the subject matter of this piece and to introduce new choreographers to the dance scene.

You can come and see this show at the Erikson Theater in Capitol Hill, Seattle on November 25th and November 26th and all of the proceeds of this event will go to the charity LANDBACK. This show will feature dancing from Christian West, Pilar Galdamez, Mia Behnke, Alivia Behnke, Nicole Barrett, Tija Dupont, Miles Rich-Davis, Simone Joshua and others. Buy tickets here for any of the three performances. We hope to see you at the show!

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Local Young Choreographer Christian West on What Modern Dance Means to Him

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