The Southwest Washington Dance Center will host the 24th annual Dance Festival Northwest at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 19, at Corbet Theatre on the Centralia College campus.
Dance Festival Northwest brings dance companies from around the Pacific Northwest to the Twin Cities area. The dancers attend master dance classes together as a group and then each individual company performs dance pieces that they have prepared. This year, there will be diverse forms of dance performed — from contemporary ballet, modern/contemporary dance, ballroom and jazz.
The featured company this year is Michele Miller/Catapult Dance, a professional contemporary dance company from Seattle, under the direction of Michele Miller, artistic director.
Miller moved to Seattle to join the Pat Graney Company in 1992. With KT Niehoff, she began Velocity Dance Center in 1996. She left her position as executive director in 2005, but remained on the board of directors until 2006. She has taught locally in summer workshops for Dance This! Strictly Seattle, Cornish Summer Dance Intensive, SFADI and the Regional Dance America Craft of Choreography workshop. Miller is a professor at Cornish College of the Arts and owns and teaches private Pilates sessions and martial arts classes at SH/FT Movement and Healing Arts.
The host company, under the direction of Danielle Brosco, is Southwest Washington Dance Ensemble, from Chehalis. For over 33 years, Southwest Washington Dance Ensemble has given the gift of dance to the Lewis County area. The Dance Ensemble has performed for audiences at the Lewis County Community Concert, the Nutcracker, Northwest Wind Symphony and the Merce Cunningham Tribute. It has also danced at Dancepalozza in Seattle, Dance to Make a Difference Charity Gala and Olympia Dance Festival.
Visiting companies this year include Ballet Northwest, Olympia; Evergreen City Ballet, Renton; Harbor Dance Ballet Company, Gig Harbor; Olympia Ballroom Dance, Olympia; Studio West Dance Theatre, Olympia; and the host company, Southwest Washington Dance Ensemble Chehalis
Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for seniors, students and children. They are available at www.swwdance.org; the Southwest Washington Dance Center, 455 N. Market Blvd., Chehalis; and at the door.
Those with mobility challenges are asked to call the Dance Center to reserve seats.
For more information, call the Dance Center, (360) 748-4789.
