Providing Opportunity Through Community Classes
Drop Zone’s Lex Ramirez on Offering Equitable Access to Dance
By Madison Huizinga, DWC Blog Editor
Photo by Val Gonzales
The world of dance is replete with gatekeepers, holding many people interested in learning more about the art form and cultivating community back from succeeding. There’s a great need for community spaces where people of all social identities can show up free of judgment and feel like they’re a part of something bigger than themselves. Thanks to Lex Ramirez, spaces like that are coming to fruition. Drop Zone is Lex’s latest creation: a creative dance hub featuring “classes, events, and groups centering artists from marginalized communities.”
Lex was first exposed to dance through Mexican folk dancing around age eight. She was also a part of a Catholic youth cheerleading organization. In school, she found a community of girls who loved hip hop, like her. The group got together outside of school to dance together and teach one another. In college, Lex’s passion for hip hop persevered, as she joined a hip hop dance team.
She moved from her hometown of Oakland to Seattle when she received a fellowship in multicultural education, involving a program interested in getting more people of color involved in outdoor education. “I knew it was a good opportunity to learn some skills about teaching in an accessible way to BIPOC youth,” Lex says. She had intended to only move to Seattle for a year to do the fellowship. However, one day, Lex decided to stop into the dance studio she always passed on her way to work. She took a class and loved it, eventually teaching several classes herself. “It was like the universe being like ‘no, stay here,’” Lex says.
“I never did studio dance [as a kid],” Lex shares. “I think that’s an important part of my journey.” She shares that the spaces she danced in growing up were always extremely welcoming. While many dance studios focus on catering to pre-professional dancers, Lex felt like the dance communities she’s been a part of welcomed all dancers, from those who wanted to pursue it as a career to those who saw it as a passionate, recreational outlet.
However, after struggling with a traumatic experience within the dance community, Lex realized that no dancer should feel unwelcome and put down in the ways she felt. Having worked in dance administration, taught, and danced as an artist herself, she decided to bring all of her skills together to create a safe and equitable hub for dancers in the Seattle area.
Lex currently teaches at Dance Underground and is shocked at how many people are unaware of the space. “I have a lot of students and I wanted a way for instructors to be connected to my student base, but also for my students to be exposed to them,” Lex says. “I also wanted to uplift artists from marginalized communities...I wanted to create a space where both teachers and students could grow.” Thus, Drop Zone was born.
Currently, Drop Zone offers community classes for the public in styles like hip hop, breaking, hustle, contemporary, and sensual floor work, as well as a dance crew called Drop Squad, open for hip hop dancers of all experience levels. The community classes are on a sliding-scale cost, from $5-20. Funds go towards supporting the instructors. Looking forward, Lex hopes to host events through Drop Zone that foster community, as well as bridge the gap between dancers, musicians, photographers, videographers, and other artists. She looks forward to organizing more dance projects that feed dancers and instructors creatively.
Moving forward, Lex wishes for dance teachers to communicate with one another more. There’s a strong feeling of competition that runs across the dance industry, causing teachers, dancers, and other industry professionals to retreat to their silos. Lex points out that it’s hard for dancers and teachers to grow when they feel like they’re being judged. “There’s this weird expectation that if you’re a teacher, you have to be good at everything and that’s just not realistic,” Lex says. “So it’s hard to find a space in your community as a teacher, where you feel like you can work on yourself free of judgment.” She says that it would be great for Drop Zone to host events where teachers can come into conversation with one another about their unique struggles. “I think it’s really important to collaborate, so that we can all differentiate ourselves and what we offer.” There should be a space for every teacher and every dancer to exist in the community.
Be sure to follow Lex and Drop Zone on Instagram to hear about upcoming events.
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