December “Spotlight”
December is always so busy at Fidalgo Dance Works. Nutcracker and Winter Celebration are always here and gone in a blink. All of our dancers have been working so hard and learning so much this month to be ready to show off their new skills. and put on some fantastic productions for our community. The studio is closed December 19th-2nd for Winter Break. We hope you all have a restful and wonderful break!
We want to congratulate the entire Nutcracker cast on a wonderful job this year! Putting on any production is a lot of time and hard work for everyone involved. Thank you to the dancers, families, and staff, without whom we would not be able to put on such an excellent show for our community. Click the link to view a short video of a few of our amazing dancers.
Act 1 cast
We also had a wonderful Winter Celebration! It is so fun to see all our contemporary dancers. It is always amazing to watch how much they all grow as dancers in the months leading up to performances. Click the link to view a clip of rehearsals from the show.
Former student Highlight : Ellisa Weisz
Elissa Weisz fell in love with dance watching her older sister’s ballet classes at the age of 3 and hasn’t stopped since. Elissa trained in ballet, tap, jazz and modern at Fidalgo DanceWorks in her hometown of Anacortes, WA, before attending Anderson University (IN) obtaining degrees in Exercise Science and Dance Performance (comp) with a minor in Nutrition.
While at Anderson, Elissa’s coursework included extensive anatomy and physiology, biomechanics, sports nutrition, dance pedagogy, dance composition, improvisation; her senior research projects were titled “Eating disorder prevention for the dance educator” under the supervision Brittney Osborne, MA, LMHC, and “The effect of hydration status on cycle exercise workload when exercise intensity is set at a fixed rate” under Andrew Jones, PhD.
Elissa studied dance with Angela Agresti (Dutch National Ballet), Jane Hachiya-Weiner (Hirofumi Inoue Ballet), Erich Yetter (Ballet Met), and Christine Colquitt Thacker (Gregory Hancock Dance Theater), and was cast in the world premiere of The Audacious Hope of Deep Roots by guest-artist Nicole Clark-Springer of Deeply Rooted Dance Theater. Professional experiences include interning for Deeply Rooted Dance Theater (Chicago, IL) as their operations and development intern in addition to attending their summer dance intensives (2020, 2021); performing in EXODUS with Gregory Hancock Dance Theatre (Carmel, IN); choreographing and staging her first original work, The Courage of Stars (Anderson, IN).
Elissa is now in her first season with Inlet Dance Theater (Cleveland, OH) as a trainee and is enjoying exploring Cleveland. Her interests outside of dance include yoga, spending time outside, and watching trashy-reality TV.
This is a quick video of Elissa working with some of our upper level Ballet students. We can’t wait to have her back!
If you know a FDW dancer whose accomplishments need a shout out, please let us know! We’d love to feature them in a future installment of “Spotlight.” Send details to studio@fidalgodanceworks.org
