Teen Intensive
Creative Dance Center Teen Intensive
Experience freedom and growth this summer! A caring, non-judgmental, and inspiring faculty is ready to support your development as a dancer and creative artist.
Spend an extraordinary and enriching week with us at the Creative Dance Center during our Teen Intensive this summer. Students ages 14-19 have the opportunity to study with passionate, unique, and gifted dance educators.
Each day features dance class followed by a facilitated talk back and discussion on issues pertinent to teens/artists/creators/dancers. After the talk back students will take a class in different styles or dive into the creative process.
Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity – register now!
Three years dance experience is recommended.
Email terry@creativedance.org with questions about eligibility.
When: August 10-14, 2026. Monday – Friday, 4:30pm to 8:15pm
Tuition: $485 – Attendance is required for all 5 days.
Ages: 14-19 (must be entering 9th grade in the fall)
2026 Faculty: Kaitlin McCarthy, Chloe Albin, Tariq Mitri, Jemoni Powe, and DéShawn Morton. See below for bios.
Financial aid available. Click here to complete our online financial aid application. Please wait until you hear from CDC staff about your financial aid application before registering. Email questions to darrah@creativedance.org
Check out our summer Dance Lab for ages 10-13 here.
Teen Intensive 2026 Faculty + Schedule
Kaitlin McCarthy
Kaitlin McCarthy is a Seattle-based dance artist, journalist, and teacher and holds a degree in dance from Mt Holyoke College. She has spent the last fifteen years performing and choreographing in venues locally, regionally, nationally and abroad, including a decade as a regular collaborator with MALACARNE under the direction of Alice Gosti, specializing in site-specific and durational work. She also creates dances with longtime creative partner Jenny Peterson as duo “The Bonnies,” who recently debuted an evening-length piece as part of Velocity’s 2026 season. As a journalist, she has spent the last fourteen years writing about the Seattle scene as a regular contributor to City Arts Magazine, Dance Intl Magazine, PublicDisplay.Art, and SeattleDances.com, where she has been the Editor since 2016. Kaitlin has had the honor of teaching dance since 2014 with both Velocity and eXit SPACE dance.
Mon August 10 Schedule with Kaitlin
Contemporary Modern Technique (4:30-6:15)
Pulling from an eclectic mix of Modern techniques, this class alternates follow-along exercises with progressive sequences to move through a full range of motion with the entire body. Grounded in anatomical cueing, this class seeks to merge practical strategies in the body with the power of imagination to help students find their full expressive capacity. Students are invited to work with intention and specificity around how movements are initiated and connect to one another in order to create a wide range of qualities and dynamics in the body. Joy, camaraderie, and happy bodies are at the core of this practice.
Talk Back (6:20-6:40)
Kaitlin will discuss her career as a professional freelance dancer in Seattle for the last fifteen years. This includes her decade-long experience inside a “pickup” dance company, and an extensive history self-producing her own cross-disciplinary dance works. She will also share her journey as a self-taught arts journalist, from starting to write to editing and running her own non-profit dance publication, and how writing has influenced her choreographic process.
Improvisation for Presence and Performance (6:45-8:15)
This workshop will use solo, duet, and group exercises aimed to give students both training and strategies for bringing their present selves into improvisational performance, or for using improvisation to create new dance material. This class will pull from Kaitlin’s personal choreographic tool box, including inviting use of the eyes, voice, and games to move away from self critique and towards activating the creative brain in a supportive environment.
Chloe Albin
Chloe Albin (she/her) is a multifaceted dancer, choreographer, and educator. She grew up dancing in the Seattle-area, and furthered her dance education at Chapman University; she currently splits her time between New York and Seattle. Chloe has performed on regional, national, and international stages, including London’s West End and LA’s iconic Dolby Theatre. Most recently, she choreographed & performed on the US/Canada tour of “The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Show”, now entering its ninth year. Other performance highlights include works by Cafe Nordo, Cameo Lethem, and Wade Madsen. With over a decade of experience teaching dancers across all levels, Chloe finds great joy in sharing movement with others. Through her teaching, Chloe strives to create a positive environment in which dancers feel motivated to take risks and expand their relationship with dance (and themselves!).
Tues August 11 Schedule with Chloe
Theatre Jazz (4:30-6:15)
Dancers will be led through a comprehensive jazz warmup, including but not limited to dynamic movement, isolations, and activation of core through Pilates-based principles. Through the lens of Jack Cole, Luigi, & Matt Mattox, dancers will then explore across-the-floor combinations to activate rhythm and locomotion through space. Class will cumulate with learning a piece of choreography.
Talk Back (6:20-6:40)
Chloe will share her career journey as a dancer/choreographer, and will highlight key factors that have helped guide her. We will talk about dance as a career path in Seattle and outside of Seattle, and all the different ways a career in the arts can look. We will open up this conversation to the group for questions and have discussion around (but not limited to): stereotypes about a career in dance/the arts, how we follow our unique path with curiosity and strength, and how we can center community and care in our work.
Musical Theatre: Prop Study (6:45-8:15)
This class will build on the skills from our Theatre Jazz class to focus on storytelling with the use of a prop. Dancers will learn a piece of choreography that incorporates a prop, with opportunities to use their unique creative voice in the building of the piece. Elements of staging will be applied, as if the piece were being prepared for performance.
Tariq Mitri
Tariq Mitri is a Seattle-based dancer, choreographer, and teacher, born in Abu Dhabi and raised in Portland, OR. He earned his BFA from CalArts (2015) and has performed for over a decade across Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle with 25+ choreographers and served as Rehearsal Director and Co-Director of the Brooklyn-based company HEIDCO. Since returning to Seattle in 2022, he has created solo, duet, and collaborative work, presented by International Dance Festival New Orleans, Velocity Dance Center, Friends of Waterfront Seattle, and CO-. He is a 2026 Centrum Emerging Artist Resident, a 2024 Body Space Time Resident Artist, Program and Operations Manager at Base: Experimental Arts + Space, and co-founder of Dance Class Seattle. Mitri is creating a new work for the 2026 Northwest New Works at On the Boards.
Wed August 12 Schedule with Tariq
Contemporary + Improvisation (4:30-6:15)
This class explores the edges of what “codified contemporary techniques” entail and aims to shift and transform. Class introduces different entry points, sometimes through intentional movement flows, improvisation, and physical group engagement. We embody semi-familiar forms and techniques through space, and play with the inspirations behind movement. We finish class learning a movement phrase as a group. Students have agency to make their own decisions–everything offered is not required, but rather an invitation into their own creative processes of dancing. This class is ultimately an equal balance between contemporary dance techniques, dance improvisation, and strengthening and conditioning.
Talk Back (6:20-6:40)
Our conversation will be a moment to hear from participants about their current goals and desires in Dance. A time to serve as a sounding board for inquiry into training/technique, building a career from a young age, the different paths available, and how imagination supports artistic growth and achieving personal goals.
Improvisation in Choreography and Composition (6:45-8:15)
This guided, research-based improvisation class will dive into many intrinsic layers of movement. We will generate warmth and explore skeletal and muscular awareness through imagery and narrative, investigating how rhythm, texture, vocalization, and dynamics inform, support, and sometimes distort the experience. We will connect our conscious mind to our practice and examine the spectrum of inspiration and ideas of memory in making, culminating in spontaneous score-building and composition. Bring your curiosity, the desire to explore many variables, and ideas to support building Choreography and Composition.
Jemoni Powe
Jemoni Powe is a professional dancer and teaching artist from Las Vegas, Nevada. Beginning his training at the School of Nevada Ballet, he was soon chosen as a Merit winner in Dance and Choreography for the National YoungArts Foundation. He has presented his work at the Choreographer’s Showcase, a collaboration between Nevada Ballet Theatre and Cirque de Soleil. He has also received an honorable mention from Orsolina’s Call for Choreographers. He is highlighted in the November 2020 issue of Dance Spirit Magazine as one of five dancers to follow. He is a 2024 graduate from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Jemoni joined Hubbard Street Dance Chicago as a Seasonal Guest Artist in 2024, performing works by Azure Barton and Bob Fosse. He is now a full-time artist with Whim W’him Contemporary Dance Theatre performing works by Lea Ved, Emilie Leriche, James Gregg, Rena Butler, and more. His teaching and choreographic research examines the intersection of pedagogy and improvisation.
Thurs August 13 Schedule with Jemoni
Contemporary Forms (4:30-6:15)
Class will begin with a somatic practice including influences of restorative and vinyasa yoga. Risk taking, optimism, and challenge are centered in this practice. It will follow a classical ballet structure but will be a mix of modern and new age contemporary technique. We will build an understanding of alignment, momentum and release, and form. Pulling from a mix of modalities, we will discover how to push our bodies in novel ways while maintaining health and safety.
Talk Back (6:20-6:40)
Jemoni will share his career path and the important decisions that led him to being hired full time as a professional dancer. He will guide students through his college application process and discuss the expectations and practices of auditioning for college and contemporary dance companies. Jemoni has been in research ever since his year long independent study with the faculty of NYU. He will discuss his research of the pedagogy of improvisation, using improvisation to choreograph, and the needs of dance theory.
Movement Research and Composition (6:45-8:15)
This workshop is loosely based on teaching methods from the author Paulo Freire and authentic movement practice. Our goal will be to free our thought building, enlighten our connection to our opinions, and begin to comfortably form thoughts and theorize about improvisation and our understanding of it. There will be a guided movement exploration and self generated movement material will be used to create with peers.
DéShawn Morton
DéShawn Morton discovered his passion for dance at age 15 while attending Tacoma School of the Arts and began formal training at Tacoma City Ballet. He later earned a BFA in Dance from the University of Arizona with emphases in ballet, modern, and jazz, and continued his training through summer study at the Dance Theatre of Harlem School. DéShawn has performed nationally and internationally, including appearances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. An educator for over 15 years, he has held leadership roles with Seattle Theatre Group, Tacoma Urban Performing Arts Center, and AileyCamp. He is the Artistic Director of Mo’ Motion Dance Project and Mo’ Motion Dance Academy in Tacoma, Washington.
Fri August 14 Schedule with DéShawn
Neo-Jazz: The Root (4:30-6:15)
Jazz dance didn’t just happen — it was created. In this class, we explore jazz through the lens of Black artistry and innovation. Using Neo-Jazz principles of improvisation, community, and intentional training, students will discover where jazz comes from and what it still has to say.
Talk Back (6:20-6:40)
“You already know this.” The dances you grew up doing? Black culture made them. This honest, open conversation explores how Black artistry built American popular culture — and why that matters. Come ready to listen, share, and leave knowing more than you walked in with.
Social Dance: Then & Now (4:30-6:15)
From the Lindy Hop to the latest TikTok trend, social dance has always belonged to the people. In this class, we trace Black social dance traditions from the past and discover that the moves you already know have roots worth knowing.
