A new workshop from Dancestreams Youth Dance Company is combining art and dance this month in Coombs.
Art and the Dancer is a one-day workshop that will teach dance, by a highly trained classical ballet and contemporary dancer, and construct plaster performance masks by an experienced art teacher.
Maiko Miyauchi from Vancouver started her ballet training when she was four years old in Japan. She said she knew she wanted to be a dancer from a young age.
“My family thought I was crazy because as soon as I started speaking all I said was ‘I want to be a ballerina.’”
At four, she was accepted by a junior ballet company in Tokyo and so began her training.
Although she said she’ll be a ballerina in her heart forever, she broadened her horizons and began training in jazz and hip hop and fell in love with both, she said. She then added urban and contemporary dance to her resume as well.
Miyauchi has danced on TV and movie sets including the 2011 Warner Bros. film Sucker Punch and she was a Kung Fu girl in a commercial for New Balance running shoes.
She was also asked to join the successful Canadian contemporary dancing group The 605 Collective, with whom she has been touring with and presenting the show Audible! in Canada and the United States.
Miyauchi will be teaching hip hop and urban influenced contemporary dancing at the Art and the Dancer workshop. She said these days it’s important to be open to many styles of dance as well as art.
Miyauchi said she has not seen many of these types of workshops in B.C. so she’s extremely excited to work with the youth and the art teacher Sara Stone, who has been teaching art for over eight years.
Stone is currently the art teacher at Ladysmith Secondary School and has instructed in district and private schools, as well as summer school. Both teachers will guide the young dancers to explore how art can influence dance and vice-versa.
Art and the Dancer is for ages 12 and up and takes place on Sun., Aug. 26 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Bradley Centre, at 975 Shearme Rd. in Coombs. Pre-registration is required. E-mail dancestreams@shaw.ca or call 250-723-9525 for more information or to reserve a spot.
For more on Miyauchi and her dance company Bare Movement visit www.mimamima.com.