Taso Papadakis
A performance at Sunnylands featuring company dancers Chad Ortiz, Samantha DeMarco, Marissa Andresky, and Hailee Whiddon.
The Coachella Valley is a thriving hub of artistic energy, but dance access was slim pickings until Nickerson-Rossi Dance put down roots in the area. Michael Nickerson-Rossi — the Founding Artistic Director of Nickerson-Rossi Dance, Palm Springs International Dance Festival and Palm Springs Dance Academy — sat down with me to discuss all things dance, and the fabulous community and dance space he and his partners are developing in Palm Springs.
The Indigenous Dance Residency and the Palm Springs International Dance Festival took place earlier this Spring and is fast becoming an important annual celebration and exploration of the language of dance:
“The Palm Springs International Dance Festival (PSIDF) exists to provide a platform for dance artists to produce and share their work, enhance the Coachella Valley communities’ understanding of concert dance, provide comprehensive education to youth, cultivate the sustainability of concert dance, and to celebrate diversity and world cultures.”
This event is so popular, it is shifting from annual to bi-annual. The fall series will take place November 3-6.
Nickerson-Rossi has lived in Palm Springs since 2012 and credits Terri Ketover — community leader, philanthropist, humanitarian and volunteer extraordinaire — for taking a chance on him and bringing him to the area. Before, dance would come and go, but there needed to be a permanent presence for the study, performance and appreciation of dance. Today, Nickerson-Rossi Dance is a thriving community nonprofit dance academy and company, with more than 700 students and performers.
Nickerson-Rossi Dance began as an internationally touring professional contemporary/modern dance company. Since its nonprofit incorporation in 2016, NRD has continued to provide educational, therapeutic and community engagement dance programming on a larger scale to make a greater impact. An inclusive organization, the space provides all communities of diverse backgrounds from race, age, gender, sexual orientation, health status, and cultural background an opportunity to experience dance on various levels. Run like a Conservatory program, the Palm Springs Dance Academy (est. 2020) is the official school of the NRD. The Academy's mission is to provide comprehensive dance education for pre-professional dancers ages 12-18. PSDA nurtures and stimulates intellectual, artistic and technical creativity. Michael says he wants to bring dance into people’s lives and works hard to get parents on board with the incredible possibilities dance can provide.
Beyond the discipline and development of strength and flexibility, Michael says his mission is to share how profoundly meaningful dance can be; something he has personally experienced. He got into dance for therapeutic reasons.
Growing up in the Modesto area, he says his trajectory was from “dairy to dirt bikes to dance.” An unlikely dancer — steeped in football, baseball and athletics — he found his voice to be in creative movement. After losing his parents young, depressed and parentless, doctors wanted to put him on medication. Instead, he found comfort, solace and a language of expression in dance: “everything I felt inside was on the stage.” He started dancing late — at age 19 — abandoning his goal of studying marine biology and film, for a life immersed in dance. He says it made him feel better, and so his life’s work became about fostering the education, performance and advocacy of dance. He works to uplift the lineage and legacy of dance, “the art form, the educational tool, the means of expression, exercise, community engagement; all of it!”
Michael lived bi-coastally and worked as an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins before moving permanently to the Palm Springs area. Nickerson-Rossi Dance is currently building the only full-fledged, state-of-the-art dance theater in the Coachella Valley. I got to see the incredible 6000-square foot location with atmospheric lighting and a thoroughly modern studio and performance space under construction, set to be completed by May 2022.
NRD has classes for all ages, from intro to professional training, in ballet, jazz and hip-hop. Adult and same-sex partnering classes include ballroom, swing, salsa and tango. Add to that the diverse programming that brings in fitness classes and a meditation-like class called Sound Bath. A sound bath is a deeply immersive sound experience that delivers you to a fully relaxed state of ease. Think of it as a power-down for your busy mind and a massage for your tapped-out nervous system.
Dancers wishing to pursue dance as a career or apply to college can train at the school while it undergoes its two-year accreditation process with the state of California. Ultimately, the academy will become a conservatory. The program offered will be a post-secondary education, so students will graduate with a trade school degree.
The Direct/Link week-long summer program from July 25-31 offers 12 young dancers access to professional mentors, teachers, training and preparation for college and professional careers.
A recent performance at the Frank Sinatra Estate — co-produced with Modernism Week, and honoring the connection between Gene Kelly and Ol’ Blue Eyes — was attended by Patricia Kelly, Gene’s widow.
From sold out performances at indoor and outdoor venues across the Valley (including the Sunnylands stunning environment) to tiny tots in tutus and same sex couples’ sizzling tango flourishes — we are lucky Nickerson-Rossi Dance has found a home in our neck of the desert.
Nickerson-Rossi Dance
611 South Palm Canyon Dr., Palm Springs, CA 92264
760.992.6075
Info@NickersonRossiDance.com
