Colorado Dance Initiative

A supplemental pre-professional program designed to assist, mentor, and coach young dancers to reach their goals of dancing collegiately and professionally. 

What’s Included

  • Classes

    Dancers will meet to take class and rehearsals two Sundays each month. This will include an invitation to take class with the professional dancers of Chadash Contemporary Dance Movement. Ms. Archer teaches one of these company classes each month and the Chadash company dancers rotate to teach the other classes in the month. The Chadash company dancers are professionals at the top of their fields and bring experience in many dance genres and styles including, but not limited to: ballet, contemporary, modern, jazz, hip-hop, musical theatre, improvisation, floor work, and tap. The company classes will reflect this variety of styles. This is important as young dancers move into the professional dance world because it is demanded in the current dance landscape that dancers are well-versed and trained in every dance style, no matter what kind of dance career they may choose and aspire towards. 

  • Rehearsals

    The program will also include a one and a half hour rehearsal in which the dancers will be learning professional-level concert pieces.  The rehearsals will culminate in a combined concert with Chadash at the end of the season (May), in a nurturing professional environment, with the dancers showcasing the work they have learned throughout the season. This process, as well as the concert itself, will help give each dancer foundational knowledge about the professional dance world in a way that nothing else can.

  • One-On-One Coaching

    The program will include two one-on-one coaching sessions with Ms. Archer throughout the season, in which Ms. Archer will, with each dancer and his or her parent, assess each dancer’s goals and help create individual paths to get there.

  • Mentorship

    Each CDI dancer will be assigned a Chadash dancer as a mentor. These mentors will pay individual attention to “their” CDI mentee in class and rehearsal and will work with Ms Archer, the dancers and their parents, as a team, towards nurturing and encouraging each CDI dancer work towards realizing their dance dreams.

    Dancers will also have the opportunity to join an exclusive Question Forum with multiple company members to learn more about the professional and collegiate dance world.

  • Professional Opportunities

    At the end of each season, as a part of the program, there will be an audition held for Apprentice spots in the August Chadash concert, allowing these Apprentices to work alongside the company dancers, professionals from all over the country, for an intense week to ten-day process, which will culminate in presenting a full-length concert with Chadash’s out of town professional company dancers.

  • Additives

    Dancers have the opportunity to add any of these extra opportunities to their individualized program plan;

    Photoshoot (Including Dance shots and Headshots)

    College Preparatory Meeting

    Resume prep

    Solo Filming and Dance Reel Building

    Solo Coaching

The Unique Advantage

The Colorado Dance Initiative, is a supplemental pre-professional program designed to assist, mentor, and coach young dancers to reach their dance goals and dreams within the context of a professional, nurturing, and encouraging environment. 

Ms. Archer is experienced in directing pre-professional programs where upon graduation from these programs, these young pre-professional dancers gain entrance into the conservatory/university programs and companies of their choice. Ms. Archer has taken her experience and what she has learned from directing programs like this in California, and applied this knowledge in creating CDI, upon relocating to Colorado. Understanding how difficult it has become to be accepted into these highly competitive upper-tier conservatory and university dance programs, Ms. Archer stresses how important it is for young dancers to train and build their resumes accordingly.  In addition, Ms. Archer believes in the importance of a nurturing, encouraging environment that will give pre-professional dancers the physical and emotional tools and confidence they need to succeed and thrive in a professional dance context.  

In 2016, Ms. Archer founded Chadash Contemporary Dance Movement, a professional company, based in the Denver area, passionate about its mission.  Chadash has gathered some of the most amazing professional dancers from around the country to tell original stories through well-crafted dance and other media, to cultivate renewal, reparation, and restoration in a broken world.  Chadash’s desire is to honestly acknowledge the world as it is, and as hope-bearers, through the aesthetic of dance, engage in the conversation of what it can be.  Through transcendent, human choreography and art that cuts to the heart, is thought-provoking and soul-stirring, Chadash “stands in the ashes of the barn burned down, and points to the moon, one foot in suffering, one foot in hope.”

In the past, Chadash’s concerts have held an educational component by including in its concerts, a small number of apprentices. These apprentices are pre-professional dancers whose goal is a career in professional dance. Concert after concert, year after year, both sets of dancers (professional and apprentices) grow from the opportunity of working together to create a concert. The Apprentices who have been a part of the Chadash concerts in the past continue to request the opportunity year after year to be a part of the Chadash concerts. These are students who have gone on to continue their training at such prestigious programs as the Juilliard School, the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance at USC, and the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Many of these dancers have made the natural progression from Chadash Apprentices to Chadash Company dancers.

Since January 2021, Chadash, with its local professional dancers, holds company classes and rehearsals on a weekly basis and works towards a concert with CDI every May. Ms. Archer sees the overlap of Chadash and CDI as an organic development, not only of CDI but also of the Apprentice component of Chadash.

In addition, because of her experience and vast knowledge, Ms. Archer is able to observe each dance student and assess which programs will be the best fit for them coming out of high school. Working closely with the parents and the students, Ms. Archer helps them to create goals and put them on a path that will help them meet those goals.  Realizing how important this part of the program is, two one-on-one meetings with each dancer and their parents throughout the year to discuss each student’s individual path which will lead them to pursue their dreams/goals, are included as a part of the program of CDI.

The program also serves as a bridge between the studio world and the university/dance concert world.  Too many students graduate high school, leave their dance studio and have a rude awakening when they realize how different concert/conservatory/university culture and training is as opposed to studio culture and training. 

By having the opportunity to work with the professional company members of Chadash, this gap is bridged and the pre-professionals are given real professional dance concert experience before graduating from high school. This experience will give each CDI dancer an advantage and a head start both tangibly, on their resumes, and intangibly, in the immeasurable benefit of being able to take class and rehearse with professional dancers every week.

OPEN AUDITIONS

OPEN AUDITIONS

Open Auditions

Date: Sunday June 1, 2025

Time: 11:00am-1:00pm

Location: 555 Burbank St N, Broomfield, CO 80020

Dress Code: Ballet attire for ballet class, tight fitting clothes than can go easily over ballet attire for the contemporary class

What to bring:

  • Headshot

  • Dance photo

  • $35 audition fee (Registration at the door)

To be considered, please bring the following: 

Headshot, Resume, and 2-3 Recent dance photos

  • Resume

  • Headshot

  • 2-3 Recent Dance Photos