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NEW ARTiculations Dance Theatre

The DanceLoft Hires World Champion Gold Medalist Michelle Baas to Faculty

 Champion baton twirler Michelle Baas joined the faculty at the DanceLoft, a downtown Tucson contemporary dance studio.  Perhaps better known locally for her fire spinning, Baas was a competitive baton twirler for 12 years beginning at the age of five and won two gold medals at the NBTA World Championships in Birmingham, England in 2000.  

 Since her discovery of fire dancing in 2001, she dances with poi, batons, a 5-foot long staff, and fans that are lit on fire.  The element of fire has offered an entirely new energy to her previous practice and methods of teaching. 

 “I was taught with a very structured and disciplined methodology of baton twirling.  The routines that we used were given to us in September and we danced them until the last week in July.  We had to practice it 10 times a day, from beginning to end--it felt a lot more like the military than art.”  When Baas began to spin Poi, she found a freedom she’d been looking for.  “It was the first time in my life that I’d danced freely--all of a sudden I was making art, and it was treated like a gift.  Performing is transformational for me and for the audience.  I never had that with baton twirling.” 

 With these new discoveries, Baas’ approach to teaching children’s baton twirling classes will be about the art as well as the discipline.  She aims togive the students a sense of freedom of movement that allows them to express themselves more personally.  “I want baton twirling to be fun for the kids.  I want to show them the LED batons that glow and give them a fire spinning demonstration and show them where they can take it.  If they know what else is exciting out there (besides competitive baton twirling) then they will see it’s something they can hold onto for a lifetime.”

 For information on children’s baton classes, see www.thedanceloft.com or call 520-250-4664.  For information on poi or staff classes, contact Michelle directly at 990-4048 or michelle@firegrace.com.

 The DanceLoft specializes in contemporary dance including modern, hip hop, bellydance, jazz, tap, ballet, Pilates and Feldenkrais^® Awareness Through Movement^® classes.  Located in the warehouses just south of downtown, The DanceLoft occupies a 1,000 square foot studio and is home to the modern dance performing company NEW ARTiculations Dance Theatre and the urban dance troupe The Human Project. 

Copyright © 2009 The DanceLoft LLC
Contact:  mailto:tammy@thedanceloft.com, or call 520.250.4664