Convo with a Dance Pro: Anisah Richardson, Choreographer & Artistic Director
In any career path, there is no straight and narrow route - especially in dance. Onstage isn’t the only place your dance experience can land you. If you’re curious to learn more about different dance-related career paths, keep reading!
We recently interviewed Anisah Richardson, the Artistic Director and Choreographer for Dance Artistry Impact, LLC (DAI). Anisah has been training in dance for 20 years - from various local studios in her hometown of West Haven, CT, to Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Extension and Mark Morris Dance Group. She also studied dance abroad in Denmark at the Copenhagen Contemporary Dance School.
In her interview below, Anisah discusses how she came to love choreography, some of the challenges she faced starting her business during COVID, and advice for dancers who may want to follow a similar career path.
Photo: Anisah Richardson; shot by Liv Framed Photography LLC
Tell us about your path to becoming a choreographer. Did you stumble upon the career, or have you always known what you wanted to be?
I remember being 8 years old and watching my older sister teach dance routines at holiday family gatherings. I admired the way she moved so confidently and freely. I was always very shy and lacking self-confidence, but I remember learning those dances, being challenged by some of the steps, and going to my room and practicing them over and over again - sometimes in the mirror!
I felt this confidence, this liberation that I seemed to only feel while I was dancing. It wasn't long before I started making up my own dances and learned that there were people who did this for a living! Choreographers! I immediately knew where my heart was and what I wanted to do with my life.
What do you love most about your career?
What I love most about my career is being able to share experiences and stories through dance. It's the reason why I started, and it means so much to me to be able to come across not only other individuals that dance professionally but also those who don't but still have a story to tell.
I've been able to set work on individuals with no dance background who had these amazing, life-changing stories that made us all smile, laugh, cry, and feel incredible things through their movement. It's special to me and I enjoy being able to train artists and get them to think deeper than just the “perfect lines.”
Have you ever had a moment when you were given a clear sign that this is where you’re meant to be? If so, tell us about it.
In my journey to my business, there were so many logistical reasons for me to quit, and every time I thought about it, someone would reach out to me and ask about a class or a private lesson. I'd get these messages from dancers I hadn't heard from for a while, expressing gratitude for the times that we worked together or how my choreography impacted their lives.
They were reminders to me to keep going - that what I was doing mattered and was important. Those connections are what really kept me going, especially during the really rough patches I hit in starting DAI.
What are some of the challenges you’ve faced along the way? How did you overcome them?
My biggest challenge was fear of failure in starting a business, especially during COVID. When I opened DAI, there were dance studios closing all over the place - studios who had been in business for years! I remember thinking, “now isn't the time to start a business.” I also remember saying the same thing year after year for one reason or another and I decided to just take the chance. It was now or never for me, and it wasn't easy.
I remember struggling with trying to get the word out about my studio during COVID. Trying to advertise for workshops during a time where most things were virtual was very challenging. I actually had to postpone my first workshop to take more time to plan out how to not only advertise what I had to offer as a new studio, but also how to come up with a plan to gain people's trust. This took having a clear plan on how I would run a clean and safe studio, and getting the word out to the right audiences at the right time through social media. It was hard but it made me do a lot of thinking about how I wanted to present my studio online. A lot of that planning and thought process I still use to this day.
Do you have any advice for someone who may want to follow a similar career path?
The advice I would give to anyone looking to follow a similar career path is to trust and believe in yourself. There's going to be so much along the way that's going to make you question your vision, and you're going to need to trust in your own capabilities to push through those times of doubt. Once you do, anything will be possible and it'll be extremely hard for anyone to stop you!
Photo: Anisah Richardson; shot by Taron K. Lee
What is the impact you’d like to make through your career?
The impact I want to make through my career is to find ways to give under-resourced communities exposure to dance and art, especially for our youth. Having discovered dance and art at a young age myself, I wasn't given the opportunity to train professionally until much later on in life. I want to be able to fund more dancers to have the opportunity to have a quality dance education that also encourages and celebrates the power of self-expression.
Is there anything you’d like to add for anyone reading this?
I'd like to send love and strength to our Black and Brown community, especially our youth. I hope that they will always know that there is a place for them in the dance community and that they can fill that place with no one other than their authentic selves. Dance is your art, your story, and your artistry. You have the power to impact that world with it in great ways!
The Dance Artistry Impact is accepting new students in their year-round dance program until December 9th. For information on enrollment and other choreography and art services, follow DAI on Instagram or visit their website at www.danceartistryimpact.com.