By: Sonora Slater
When Marlaina Spivey, the owner of Davis-based Mirror Image Dance Company, decided to bring competition dance to her studio nearly a decade ago, she wanted to do it in a very specific way—one that felt inclusive, and one that focused on team-building.
“I personally love competition, because it’s team oriented,” Spivey told The Dirt. “If there isn’t a competition component of dance, there’s often in-house competition, which can sometimes be unhealthy and pit people against each other.”
Many years of competition later, Spivey thinks that vision has been a success in many ways, allowing young dancers to form bonds through dance and push themselves to achieve their potential through competition. Although the competition team doesn’t require dancers to formally try-out, she realized as the level of dance being performed by her competition team has gotten more and more advanced over the years, the space still may feel exclusive for dancers who are intimidated or nervous about their ability to keep up with the rest of the group. Specifically, dancers living with mental or physical disabilities. She didn’t want that barrier to remain.
“I wanted to provide a space where everyone can come, and all those worries are kind of not there anymore,” Spivey said.
And so, the Pure Joy team was born. The group pairs dancers from the studio’s pre-existing competition team with dancers who are living with disabilities, and together, they’ve begun rehearsing choreography to perform at competitions beginning in April. The team is funded by the Davis-based Inclusive Arts Alliance, allowing participants to attend rehearsals and register for competitions at no cost.
The team is an extension of Mirror Image’s Pure Joy classes that have been going on for about three years now—a series of movement and musicality based classes geared toward dancers experiencing mental or physical disabilities. These classes are also available at no cost to Pure Joy families, lowering the financial barrier to dance via a partnership with Alta California Regional Center. Spivey said the studio had considered launching a secondary competition team for a while, but decided to finally take the plunge this season to see if Pure Joy dancers might be interested.
Ten dancers signed up almost immediately, and nearly ten more have since followed suit. Needless to say, the interest was there.
“June loves to perform—she’s a scene-stealer,” Allison Olson said of her daughter, a 14-year-old member of the Pure Joy competition team. “Competition was an obvious fit. She is essentially nonverbal, but she just lights up when she sees all her neurodivergent and neurotypical peers [on the team].”
And the team is, intentionally, a mixture of all types of dancers, rather than exclusively a team comprised of dancers with disabilities. Once they decided to launch the team, Spivey put the word out to high school students who were part of her original competition team, asking if anyone would like to join in as fellow dancers and as one-on-one helpers for those who needed the support.
“As a mother of a child with disabilities, I find that often there’s ‘us versus them,’” Spivey said. “So we intentionally didn’t want to just have dancers with disabilities on stage.”
Each Pure Joy dancer is paired with a buddy, and together they learn choreography and formations. They’ll perform and compete together, too, giving the dancers who are new to competition a built-in support network made up of dancers who are comfortable on stage and already know how competition works.
Liam Olson is one of these helpers; he originally joined to pair up with his sister June. Although he isn’t her one-on-one partner anymore, he’s stuck around, and says the environment of Pure Joy has been a great place to have fun and meet new people.
“I’m glad to see my sister communicating and being social,” Liam Olson told The Dirt. “I’ve met people and I’m making friends—Pure Joy brings people together.”
And he’s not the only one who feels that way—Spivey said she’s been pleasantly surprised by how many of her helpers have come up to her to specifically share how much they’ve enjoyed the experience of being on the secondary team.
“They came out of the first practice, and were, like, ‘We didn’t know what to expect, but this is so wonderful,’ saying it re-energized them and reminded them they love dance and they love what it can do,” Spivey said. “It just was really heartwarming to hear that real connections are being formed.”
The team for this year’s season is solidified, but anyone interested in joining the Pure Joy competition team can be on the look-out for more information about their next season in mid-to-late Summer. In the meantime, Pure Joy classes remain open to the public for anyone who wants to get a taste of what the atmosphere is like before diving all the way into competition. Alternatively, dancers who would prefer to join traditional classes alongside a one-on-one are welcome to do so.
For Olson and her kids, taking that jump has been worth it.
“There is no better description than Pure Joy,” Olson said. “That’s what it is.”
