Dani is a local dance artist and teacher with a passion for curating safe, enriching, and creatively fulfilling dance spaces for adolescent and teenage dancers. They feel strongly that dance provides a unique framework through which young dancers can practice and build critical life skills that help them navigate the world around them. Their priority as a dance instructor is to facilitate inclusive and accessible movement spaces that help students learn how to inhabit their bodies and move through the world confidently.

Dani graduated from Reed College with a B.A. in Dance, where they had the privilege of studying under professors Carla Mann, Oluyinka Parsons-Akinjiola, Victoria Fortuna, and Marisa Plasencia. Through Reed, they have also danced under instructor Vanessa Theissen and visiting artists Eiko Otake, Meshi Chavez, Subashini Ganesan-Forbes, Barbara Lima, Franko Nieto, Charles Roy, and Ronald K. Brown, amongst others. Previous to their time at Reed, Dani spent their young dance career working with instructor Pat Colgate and California-based companies Placer Theatre Ballet and Technically Ballet Company.

Some of Dani’s recent projects include garden excerpts, a dance film exploring immigration narratives and mixed identity; i dont know what to do with the body, an embodied meditation on endings and transitions; and Mulch, an improvisational dance performance and interactive installation investigating dance’s capacity for generating liminal spaces.