By Meryl Feld / Editor
Dance studio owners across Kansas have been meeting digitally to lean on each other for support and to swap notes on how they are keeping their students dancing. One of those dance studio owners calls the Kansas City Jewish community home.
She’s known by Miss Alex to her students. Alex Hess is the owner and director of Ovation Dance Academy in Mission, Kansas.
Hess is in charge of the second digital Kansas dancers flash mob, set for the evening of April 25.
They will be dancing to “We Belong” originally by Pat Benatar. Hess chose a version of this song sung by Marty Thomas, who grew up in Trenton, Missouri, and went on to perform on Broadway and television.
Thomas and Hess have teamed up for a special project following the flash mob that would open up the experience to dancers across the world.
The message of the song resonates with the times. “The last line in the song is ‘we belong together,’ that embodies everything we’re doing right now. And I think right now more than ever we realize that,” Hess told The Chronicle.
This is how it works: Hess choreographed a short dance routine and is sharing videos teaching it, as well as instructions on how to join the Zoom call for the virtual performance. After the performance, Ovation Dance Academy will share a recording of the performance on its social media pages.
“What will be perfect about this is that we’re all joining together, sharing hope, sharing our gift of dance and connecting,” Hess said.
Hess hopes to have over 200 dancers participate in the upcoming digital performance. She wants to expand the reach of the second flash mob as well. She is working hard to get the word out to as many dancers as possible. She also hopes to see dancers of all ages and ability levels participate in the upcoming digital performance.
The goal is for everyone who loves to dance to be able to join. Hess is sharing a more advanced version of the dance, as well as a modified version, so every level of dancer can participate. She said, “Even if they just take one hour a week and they’re six years old, their experience is just as important as your advanced dancer who is there five days a week and that’s their whole life.”
That’s an idea Hess said guides her studio, “If you love to do this, we have a place for you.”
This has been an eye-opening experience for Hess. After choreographing the flash mob dance, she felt like she was in a different headspace.
“Sometimes as a dance teacher I get so side-tracked with teaching steps that I forget about the movement and the expression,” she said. “It was fun to get back to that because this is how I release emotions and energy.”
Like many dancers, dance is how Hess expresses herself. She hopes the flash mob will help provide an outlet for dancers across the state, too.
The first Kansas dancers digital flash mob was on April 11 with over 100 dancing together via Zoom.
“To see all these kids and know that they’re all over the state,” Hess said, “It opens your mind up to ‘oh wow, there are all these other people that are going through the same thing we’re going through and having their own version of that experience.’ ”
Hess is focusing on the positives coming out of the stay-at-home orders. “With the online classes I’ve been teaching, it’s been fun to have the opportunity to explore some different things with the kids that we wouldn’t typically be able to do.” Hess has enjoyed bringing activities such as research projects about famous dancers and assignments on choreography to her students.
COVID-19 has brought Kansas dance studio owners and their students together in a way Hess has not experienced before. “Now when we go to competitions, we’re all going to want to talk with each other and connect with each other and it’s not going to be so much about competing against one another, but dancing together. And I think that’s what our whole purpose should be — just becoming a community and connecting with one another and sharing through our common love, which is dance.”