ODC Dance Residency at Gonzaga Engages Students and Spokane Community
In a week filled with inspiration and joy, ODC Dance from San Francisco completed a residency at the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center with a performance of the company's The Velveteen Rabbit for 500 elementary school children.
Working in partnership with the Center for Community Engagement in support of the University's Opportunity Northeast program that supports improving outcomes for children and families in the Spokane's Northeast communities, the Myrtle Woldson Center hosted kids from Garfield, Stevens, and Logan elementary schools. For many of these children the experience was their first with a live professional dance company.
ODC Dance under the artistic direction of Brenda Way, also gave two public performances of The Velveteen Rabbit, and presented an evening of mixed dance repertory pieces. The mixed rep evening featured two pieces from ODC's extensive repertoire, and a new work choreographed by Wray and performed by the Gonzaga Dance Repertory Touring Company (GURTC) set on Gonzaga Dance students. 
Save Me A Peach was choregraphed and taught to GU Dancers in October by ODC's Mia Chong and Brenda Way, rehearsed and tuned by Sarah Glesk, Gonzaga Dance Adjunct Instructor, and premiered Friday, January 31 by 8 GURTC students. 
For Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center Director Stephen Cummins, performances such as these exemplified the power of the arts partnerships and education. “The Myrtle Woldson Center's work with ODC Dance was the perfect artist and performing arts center collaboration because it hit on all levels - academic student engagement, under-resourced community engagement, and arts patron engagement - with artistic work of the highest caliber.”
