The art of dance is often about being in the moment and about harnessing the body’s movements and capabilities in real time.
But for all of the artform’s inherent urgency, the movements and mentalities of dance can also carry the weight – and even the responsibility - of culture, of history, and of personal legacy.
It’s a responsibility that dancer and instructor Kelsey Faulk Perez carries proudly as the owner and director of Oklahoma City’s Everything Goes Dance Studio, an all ages dance school founded by a local dance legend that grew into one of the community anchors of the Plaza District before recently striking out to a newly burgeoning area of the city.
Kelsey Faulk Perez: I’m the kind of person that, I believe everything happens for a reason. And so, I think that being able to look at your past and see how far you've come is a testament to who you are today. And I think that that's true of a business as well.
Brett Fieldcamp: For Everything Goes, that history extends all the way back to when beloved Oklahoman performer and dance teacher Shannon Calderon Primeau launched the school in a small storefront in the mid-90s. It was there that Faulk Perez began learning dance as a child, and she grew with the studio, even as it moved into its longtime home in the Plaza a few years later in the early days of the district.
Given the location and the wild cultural diversity of the developing Plaza, Everything Goes quickly became a melting pot for the city’s small, tightly knit dance community, and became a creative launch pad for students like Kelsey.
Kelsey Faulk Perez: My senior year of high school, I got the opportunity to actually teach a class and do choreography and create and help educate my fellow students. And from that moment, I realized how much I loved to create movement, and how much I loved to teach. And it sort of just kind of happened naturally, and that was sort of the moment that I realized this is what I want to do.
Brett Fieldcamp: That drive would be put to the test when Calderon was tragically lost to cancer in 2015, not only leaving a hole in the studio’s leadership and in the spirit of the dance community, but in the character of the rapidly changing Plaza as well.
After a few short years of transition, the Calderon family offered control of the studio and of its rich history to Kelsey, who had grown for more than a decade in the space and in the extended family it had spawned through the district and through the city’s dance and performance scene.
Kelsey Faulk Perez: Honestly, at the time, I really felt like this feels right. This feels like it's what I need to do, and I wanted to continue that legacy. I didn't want it to get lost. And I, you know, I was worried about its future.
Brett Fieldcamp: Protecting and ensuring the studio’s future meant extending its reach through expanded programs and classes, a commitment to continuing lessons virtually throughout the pandemic period, and a wholehearted embrace of the exploding interest in adult dance classes.
But eventually, ensuring the studio’s future would also mean the inevitable break away from the Plaza in search of more space, new expansion, and a chance for Faulk Perez to write her own new chapter in its continuing story.
Kelsey Faulk Perez: I think that in our new space. Now we have room to expand and we have room to grow. It really is a step toward making it my own. I know I spoke with Shannon's family and that, and that was something huge, was “okay, now it's your time to go and fly and make it you.”
It’s still our history. It’s, you know, you'll walk in our new space, and there's nods to our history throughout. Every room is named after a different thing in the studio's history.
Brett Fieldcamp: Rather than its location – and rather than its place within or without the shifting dynamics of the Plaza - the community of Everything Goes continues to grow from a commitment to Calderon’s vision of stylistic and cultural diversity, and to spreading the same encouragement that Miss Kelsey and thousands of others have received throughout the studio’s history.
Kelsey Faulk Perez: I think it's all about the environment that you create. And I think that creating an environment in a safe place, with safe teachers that are going to make you feel seen and going to make you feel like you are succeeding, even if it's the littlest thing, that's super important in being able to get someone, sort of, past that hurdle.
And I mean, honestly, the biggest hurdle right there is just having the guts to sign up for a class and show up.
Brett Fieldcamp: You can visit Everything Goes Dance Studio at their new location at NW 5th and Classen in Oklahoma City, and dancers of all ages can view and sign up for classes at everythinggoesdance.com.
For On the Scene, I’m Brett Fieldcamp.
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