By Jen Clancey STAFF WRITER
On Monday nights at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center, a few Big Sky community members can be found tapping and clacking on the stage. The dancers are enrolled in adult tap dance classes led by Jennifer Waters Howells, a Big Sky resident, dancer, choreographer and leader of Dance Big Sky, a local dance program.
Waters Howells has been teaching dance in the community for almost 12 years. She choreographs Big Sky Broadway shows, teaches younger kids and is holding sessions for adults this winter. Now, two weeks into the sessions, Waters Howells has welcomed dancers of all abilities and skill levels to tap and pirouette in classes, bringing community members together and offering Big Sky a way to groove.
Barbara Rowley has worked alongside Waters Howells on Big Sky Broadway shows for more than a decade and has seen how her choreography impacts both the participants and the show itself. Rowley said that Waters Howells is often starting from scratch when she choreographs shows.
Rowley explained that unless kids travel to Bozeman, there aren’t many opportunities to learn dance and she sees the benefit for learning for both kids in Big Sky Broadway and for adults.
“We talk all the time about community building and getting people to feel less lonely, and when you are moving in synchronization with others, you don’t feel lonely,” Rowley said. “So those kids or those adults, they’re experiencing that kind of community of—‘we’re doing this together and I need you to be, we all need to be good for each other.”
Waters Howells grew up surrounded by dance. Her mom owned a dance studio and still teaches to this day. While some may reserve dancing to a once-in-a-blue-moon event, Waters Howells said she’s been dancing six or seven days a week her whole life.
Still, she understands why people can be apprehensive about starting up dance and noted her own frustration learning to ski when she moved from Boise, Idaho to Big Sky. She hopes she can encourage and support students who get out of their comfort zone and try tap and ballet anyway.
“There’s all these kinds of fears that come along with trying,” Waters Howells said. “I understand the frustrations that come along with that, and I’m just hoping to make it fun and just kind of push through and plug away so that they can feel confident.”
She notes that music lovers may be particularly fond of tap dancing, which requires dancers to both move to, and contribute sonically to the songs they are performing with.
“It’s like making a little band with your feet,” Waters Howells said.
On Jan. 20, Waters Howells will hold the third classes in a four-week session for tap dance and ballet. Adult tap dance starts at 6:15 p.m. on Monday and adult ballet starts at 7:15 p.m.
