Christiana Axelsen has not only spent more time than most on the dance floor, she’s spent more time on one specific dance floor than some of her students have been alive.
From age 3 to 18 she danced at Bainbridge Dance Center, and has since twirled, leapt and pirouetted her way from there to the bright lights of New York City — with plenty of international stops along the way.
Now, she has come home to take over as artistic director of the school where she first found her groove.
“We couldn’t be more pleased that Christiana Axelsen is returning to the island after dancing professionally for many years in New York City to helm Bainbridge Dance Center,” said the BDC’s Quinlan Corbett.
It’s a return in more ways than one, actually.
After her childhood/teenage tenure with BDC, Axelsen returned for the first time to teach alongside Susan Thompson and then-artistic director BryAnn Bingham after graduating from Holyoke College.
For the past 10 years, though, she’s been living the big city life in NYC, dancing professionally and working with many different choreographers and artists. She has danced in Bordeaux, France, Florence, Italy, Istanbul and San Francisco, too.
After all that, a return home might seem like a step down. But Axelsen said she’s thrilled to be back on Bainbridge.
“I loved Bainbridge,” she said. “I still do.
“Seattle is one of the emerging international dance hubs, it’s a really well-known dance community,” she said. “I’m excited to kind of plug back in and hope to see what connections I can bring to those professionals and the students here at Bainbridge.”
Axelsen said she will be expanding the duties of artistic director as well, getting involved at every level of the curriculum.
“The responsibilities of the director are kind of all-encompassing,” she said. “I think of the director as kind of leading the school, leading the community, providing direction and support, bringing together the programming and supporting our terrific faculty and getting to know each family, each student. Making sure that their needs are being met.
“I will be teaching as well,” she added, “which I’m very excited about. I’m teaching both classes for our youth programs and adult classes.”
BDC is a technically focused school, not a competition studio, Axelsen explained, something she said made all the difference to her in her own student days.
“I’m excited to keep that feeling and keep it that safe space,” she said. “That’s really necessary for young people.
“Bainbridge Dance Center was a really special place for me. It was a sanctuary. Dance is a pretty magical, joyful thing to do. It’s an empty space you can walk in and leave everything behind you and just move with a group of people.”
Also from her own formative years comes the model on which Axelsen said she bases her leadership style.
“I think the idol I hold up is Susan Thompson, kind of the original owner of the dance center for many years — and actually was my mother-in-law,” she said. “Susan was a woman of great integrity. I think she was able to provide structure and support for students with generosity and compassion.
“I think one of the core aspects of education for her, that I have absorbed, is the idea of self-discipline and self-care,” Axelsen explained. “This idea of letting students be internally motivated and giving them kind of structure and support to kind of drive their own learning.”
Inspiration wasn’t the only thing Axelsen found waiting for her in the dusty archives of BDC, though. There was also a blast from the past right there in black and white.
“I recently found my self evaluation form from 1997,” she laughed. “I’ve been going through the files here. It’s this amazing form. The goals that I laid out there in 1997 are the same goals that I work on today; in terms of not only specifically as a dancer, but in terms of taking care of myself. I was really inspired by that.”
Good-old Bainbridge Island, right? The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Or do they?
“People keep saying, ‘Oh, Bainbridge has changed,’” the prodigal daughter said. “I’m curious to discover what that means. At least when I was growing up, it was a very integrated community. It felt like people were very active. There were a lot of artistic folks doing their thing.
“I think about how many of the people I graduated with who are artists, who are filmmakers, who are actors, who are dancers, and it was a community that pushed me academically and artistically, and I think showed me that many different lifestyles were possible. I hope that’s still here.”
So far, Axelson said her hometown hasn’t let her down.
“Looking at the community at the dance center, as I meet parents and meet teachers, it feels like the same special group of people that I remember from my childhood.”
BDC is located at 844 Madison Ave. North and offers instruction in a variety of dance styles for students of all ages. Visit www.bain bridgedancecenter.com to learn more.
