Dance

Just as Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade marks the start of the holiday season in New York City, Dell’Arte’s holiday production begins Humboldt’s yuletide festivities. The Dell’Arte graduate students and faculty who create each original production bring fresh ideas to the notion of theater and dance and what exactly we are celebrating here as the year […]

Walking around downtown Arcata, it’s impossible to miss the spacious new studio on Eighth Street that houses the Humboldt Capoeira Academy. The large storefront windows are curtain-less, inviting a full view of the dazzling wood floor and the martial arts classes that take place on it. After successfully operating for four years off the beaten […]

If the weather outside is frightful, don’t fret; there are plenty of reasons to be inside — and as always, the holidays bring dance. New World Ballet begins this holiday dance season with an evening of classical ballet in its studio over Thanksgiving weekend, and ends it with a formal gala event on New Year’s […]

“The culture of aloha means many different things. The aloha spirit is bigger and broader than love, than hello or goodbye,” says hula instructor Tatiana Kealoha Robinson, who grew up learning hula from her mother in their halau, or hula school on Oahu. More like a family than a school, a halau is a defining […]

In some circles ballroom dancing never went the way of the Jerk, the Pony or the Watusi. Monday nights at the Moose Lodge in Eureka, those 50 or better gather for the Friendship Circle Ballroom Dance Club, a local tradition since 1951. The dance floor is always crowded with happy folk tripping the light fantastic […]

Six bucks can buy you a margarita. That’s also the fee consummate musician and merrymaker Marla Joy charges for the Zumba classes she teaches from Fortuna to Trinidad. “Drink one margarita and you might consume 300 to 600 calories,” Joy says. “You might feel OK, but for six dollars come in and get a better […]

The Humboldt Folklife Festival, July 16-23, offers some fantastic opportunities to kick up your heels. While the early part of the week is dedicated to concerts, dancing takes over Friday night, July 22: The annual Festival Barn Dance at the Arcata Vet’s Hall is not to be missed. Monthly barn dances held by the Folklife […]

The first time Shelly Fugate saw Riverdance on TV she just got up and started doing what the dancers on the screen were doing. What being the hyperspeed version of traditional Irish step dancing performed with preternatural precision. “My feet just started doing it. My heart led, but my feet were doing it,” said Fugate. […]

Of course this Cinderella, our own Cinderella, A Humboldt Cinderella, wears Uggs. Forget that dainty slipper. (Who wears a glass slipper, anyway?) This is a ballet with bona fide ballerinas; an art form with a deceptively dainty reputation. In reality, ballet dancing is hard-ass work. Dancing in pointe shoes onstage may be the equivalent of […]

It’s hard to know where to start. For me, it begins with modern dance and then ballet: Their historic relationship of rebellions and reconciliations inform my inner dance life.  But there is so much more. Dance was the first human artistic expression. Dance and the drum. Before language there was the sound of our nascent […]