Meet Makenzie.
If I’m being honest she’s a huge part of why the dance squad came to life this year. My first distinct memory of her is from 2017 when I did a creative shoot with Rhythm and motion dance center, Dancing is like dreaming. Of all the girls at that shoot she stood out to me because of her enthusiasm for creating art with dance and the way she caught on to my vision and put her own ideas into it. I had never felt that give and take from a dancer, much less one so young before and I LOVED it.
Shortly after that she became one of my go-to girls for any dance shoot. Always willing to lend a hand, an idea, and a whole lot of time to help me bring my vision to life in a world of dance where I struggled to express in words the way I wanted the dancers to move. She has a rare gift of being able to picture what I clumsily lay out in words and make it happen.
Her creativity isn’t just in movement. This past year I discovered her love of makeup and saw that it was more than just performance makeup. She was creating faces full of art and sharing them on her tik tok. I wanted to be a part of it! We agreed to a trade. A session for her, for makeup at a styled session for me. It was win win for me. I got to try out all my underwater ideas with her and THEN bring to life this Avengers themed group dance session with her as the makeup artist.
It was the summer of creation that I needed after a mind-numbingly frustrating year. A whole part of my brain that had been lying dormant trying to survive came back to life and all the ideas for dance sessions and incredible styled sessions came flooding back in. I wanted to create just for the joy of making art again.
So I put out a call for anyone who wanted to commit to a year of working with me and bringing my dance ideas to life. I was OF COURSE SO THRILLED when Makenzie was the first one to respond. I know that what I will accomplish this year, will be 100 times better because she was a part of it.
When you see all of the incredible dance images we create this year as a team, please know you are seeing a piece of this beautiful girls art as well.
