Kate Monthy is a dancer. She looks like a dancer, she walks like a dancer, and she speaks as if conversation were a carefully choreographed partnership in articulation.



“MLKBallet is an organization that produces and teaches dance,” she says curtly of her organization, and then with a little bow of her head into a memorized eloquence, “a tuition free school for dance, offering affordable entertainment and exposing people to dance in Tacoma.” 



And expose they have, August 2 marks MOVE #8, their flagship seasonal event featuring staff and student performances, guest artist dancers and a whole lot of moving, shaking and supernatural demonstrations of flexibility. 



I cared little for dance before Monthy conceived her way into giving back in the form of instructing young movement. A product of Tacoma City Ballet, she has been training for this job since she was a very little girl.



“Dance is just MLKBallet’s medium to bring kids and adults together to create and watch good art, I choose it because that’s what I know how to teach and produce.”



The MOVE series is a way of showcasing budding young talent while simultaneously inspiring and educating a growing audience with professional performances from the dance community.



My first MOVE experience was moving indeed, particularly for me because of the subject matter of one piece in particular performed by the company’s fellow teacher and dancer Joel Myers. It was about losing a parent to cancer, he explained a bit before he began. Chip Van Gilder snapped a shot in the middle of that dance, red light pouring from the ceiling as Myers stood arms out and legs wide, reaching into the darkness for something to grasp onto. 



No one had ever been able to define that feeling for me before. Somehow, through the magic of body language, music, theater and true human emotion, Myers showed me that dance is more than slender men in tights flouncing around an oversize nutcracker doll. Dance is perhaps the ultimate in possible human expression.



“This is about new models,” says Monthy when I asked her about the goals of the non-profit school, “new ways to run a dance school, run an organization, new ways to teach children, and new ways of creating an appetite and vocabulary for this kind of art.” 



MLKBallet has two shows in August: MOVE #8 Aug. 2 at 7 p.m., and The Joel Show #3 Aug. 16. For show and ticket information call 253.906.2190 or jump on www.MLKBallet.org.