Great Profiles

As if Heather Adams’ contagious laughter weren’t enough inspiration to jump into a casual Tuesday night salsa class at the Badlander, eccentric black and white skeleton murals illuminated by dim lighting lend themselves to the irresistible beat of the salsa music.

You would never guess that the woman about to teach salsa, greeting everyone with a hundred-watt smile, had started dancing at age five with focused dreams of becoming a tutu flaunting ballerina with a tight bun. Nor would you guess that this woman who snorts, giggles and goofs at random intervals throughout her University classes retained this focus to change dance in Missoula.

She starts an eight-count, guiding two lines of four moving left to right, reminding everyone that salsa is nothing without the swaying of hips. Adding music, Heather declares it time to partner up, and everyone listens. There’s a certain authority and trust held in this bubbly figure that no one wants to offend. Eight dancers have grown to ten. College to middle-aged, new to experienced, dancers pair up to salsa for the next hour and a half.

Heather’s salsa showcases all the talent of an accomplished dancer with none of the business attitude she keeps stored behind her graceful movements. Slowly the dancers begin to try new moves on their own as Heather slides across the floor with her fiancé to dance and guide other couples in moving in unison with one another and the music. You would never know she had met some of these people just half an hour earlier.

Perhaps it’s the music and laughter protruding from the dance floor inspired by Heather’s aura or the flair she discreetly shows off that pulls two more novice dancers to the floor. Either way, she’s doing something right. And she knows it.

This graceful, fully animated woman, seems to use every part of her body from her eyes to her toes to express a range of emotions from understanding to encouragement never losing the gleam of excitement in her eyes.

While this sparkle is hard to see through the distracting glare of her pearly whites, it’s apparent that it is in part due to the anticipated opening of her community dance studio, The Downtown Collective, in March. She’s come a long way since she began dancing in West Virginia in a combination class at age five. Even then, “I wanted to focus,” she says. At age eight Heather got serious with ballet which she continued at Phoenix School of Ballet, and by ages 14 and 15 she was dancing with three companies: Ballet Arizona, a jazz company and a flamenco company- a dance you can tell she has a particular zeal for. Heather earned a scholarship and went on to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Upon graduation she moved to New York where she danced professionally for three. Following her desire to travel and experience how dance and culture combine, Heather spent a summer in Europe, “soaking up all of the new dancing.” Upon returning to the U.S., she followed her boyfriend of the time to Missoula with the plan of returning to New York in a few months.  She got a part in “Noises Off” at the Missoula Children’s Theater and began substituting at Rocky Mountain Ballet where she met with Tony Belltramo, a guitar player who taught at the UM language arts department.

Belltramo invited Heather to flamenco for high school students bused in from across Montana for Language Arts Day at UM. There, she became inspired to stay in Missoula. “The only kids that we had were about 12 kids from Circle, Montana, and there are probably about only 13 kids from Circle, Montana, all told. It’s tiny, out east. And these kids, they were just blown away and I was, you know in my whole flamenco thing. I had my big earrings, I had a big bun and flowers and a dress and the whole thing and with the guitar. And the kids just seemed really enthralled ‘cause I knew they’d just never seen anything like that, nothing. I’m sure no flamenco companies are going through Circle, Montana, so that was it, I mean right then I was like, ‘I have to stay here,’” she exclaims as her expression and voice reflect a delight she has not lost. “Because it was like I really felt compelled to share the things I love about dance with people that have not had that experience. Because I think about when I was younger, and we’d go to performances and how inspired I would be to see other people doing something that was so amazing it made we want to do it and so my intention is…. certainly, to share that love in a way.”

In her first eight and a half years in Missoula, Heather has continuously shared that love. While she has always been involved in dance, she explains that, “about four and a half years ago I decided I wanted to make my living with dance.” She dropped her day job as director of operations at a technology company to teach dance. “To make a living, to be involved 100 percent of the time, you’ve got to teach,” she says.

Today, along with teaching at UM, Heather gives private dance lessons, teaches at MCT and in neighboring towns, mentors dance students and participates in the International Food and Culture Show.

Her newest step in sharing her love of dance, The DDC, will focus primarily on adults. “There are three wonderful studios in town that focus on children, children up to 16, 17, 18, and I feel that’s being done really well and so I felt that there was a pretty strong need for adult classes, adult dance classes,” Heather explains.

While there will be a variety of beginning, intermediate and advanced level classes, Heather’s “hope is to bring people that don’t fancy themselves dancers into an environment where they’re comfortable to dance and to move… a place where you feel like you’re not going to be judged. A place where you feel if you’ve not danced before…there’s not going to be a 10-year-old poking through the window and saying ‘oh my gosh we learned that yesterday in class and that’s easy and why can’t you do it’ you know? I know that that’s tough for adults taking adult classes inside children’s studios. That can be really hard for them.”

“We’ll have ballet, modern, jazz, tap, flamenco, salsa, mambo, cha-cha, tango, country, hula, African, Irish yeah, everything,” she says.  Along with offering an array of classes, The Downtown Dance Collective will feature workshops and informal performances that Missoula residents can watch at a low cost.

The DDC required a large space to allow for such performances. Heather says, “I had some pretty significant requirements. I wanted to be downtown. I felt, especially to address the adult demographic, that many adults work downtown. There’s the hospital; you’ve got all the businesses that are downtown. There’s a high density of businesses that are right there and you’ve got the whole university area of residences, the homes as well as the university itself. I really wanted to support the culture of downtown and I believe that anything cultural like a dance entity or a theater or an art gallery those things are downtown. You go to any city; those things are downtown or in an artsy area generally downtown. So finding space down there was a huge difficulty finding a large enough space, unobstructed. … There’s space but you might have a giant steel beam going down through the middle of a room and you could probably tell your dancers to steer clear of it but you know there would be somebody who would go flying into it one day. I’d be backing up… and I’d crash right into it,” she says giggling humbly. “Space, that’s really been the single biggest challenge.”

Heather earnestly searched for a space for eight months. Her initial find of the 8,000-square-foot basement of the Elks Club, “fell through, it just sort of evaporated. It wasn’t in the cards…. Shortly after that I found, the space that I have now, that has been available the whole time, and when in first saw it I was like ‘it’s too expensive there’s no way I could do that’ and eight months later…. I found a way to make it work,” Heather says gleaming.

Space is a common problem for the arts in Missoula. “A lot of people are teaching classes in random churches or in the basement of this or that thing or renting out community spaces. I mean there are spaces for people to rent out but the biggest thing is that people don’t know about them and when they have a performance you know, people don’t come.”

“Missoula’s dance community is so amazingly diversified and my main mission is to unify the dancers that are in town,” says Heather. “It’s incredibly difficult and expensive to advertise in the mediums that are most typical … but the idea is in bringing them all into The Collective is that with combined resources. … I’m really hoping to unify what exists and to build a greater community of people that not only want to dance but that want to support it; that are interested in it. That believe that it’s a viable worthy cause you know, like Griz football, cause people support that no problem right,” she explains with a hint of a chuckle. “But this is something that’s equally fun to watch and be a part of.”

David Errigo has witnessed the many sides of Heather including her always-visible, “ridiculously supportive” layer. David and Heather came to the University of Montana the same year, David as a drama major and Heather as a teacher. David wanting to go into musical theater has taken Heather’s Jazz 1 through 3 classes as well as participating in a few shows together. David is a prime example of the impact Heather hopes to have on all her students. Heather has helped him through “auditions and tough times” and inspired him to  “pursue different creative aspects of my life.” “She goes above and beyond,” he said, explaining that, “she gets it back in turn.” Heather pushed him to venture into photography. He’s been by her side with a camera, taking pictures of the process of opening The DDC, which will be decorated with his photos to create a community vibe. David has little doubt that Heather will find plenty of support for The Downtown Dance Collective. “She’s absolutely thrilled. She’s so passionate about it; she feels dance is an important tool people can use…even as pleasure. … It’s a community dance center; it’s going to bring together a lot of the teachers who don’t have a place to teach. …Anywhere that you can learn is going to be beneficial to the community.”

“In the two and a half months that I’ve really been pushing and pushing and pushing to find a space and talking to the bank about really getting money and people have been, the overall response has been overwhelming people are like ‘Oh my god that sounds so cool, I’d totally go!’” Heather says. “You know and so I think, I think, what’s going to be a problem is getting people to actually come there and give me 10 bucks to take a class and that, that might be hard for sure. But I feel … once people get to know about it they’ll be like ‘Oh my god that’s a great place and, even if I don’t go and take a ton of classes there ill do my part to help it,’ I hope.”

Deanna Mylander, a student of Heather’s at the University, said of The Collective, “it’s going to be something Missoula hasn’t had before. She’s got a really good idea targeting adults. She’s really smart about that.” Deanna, like David, believes that Heather’s personality in itself will help sell The DDC to the community. “She, out of all the teachers I’ve [had at UM]… has the most confidence in me as a dancer. Fairly often teachers…don’t give you that extra push. She pays attention,” said Deanna. Heather’s attention and extra push has stirred Deanna, an education major, to minor in dance.

“In jazz class she’ll just totally dork out in front of the class and make everyone laugh,” said Deanna. “She’s a sweetheart.” “She’s a snorting laugher. She’s carefree and fun. … She doesn’t take life too seriously except when she needs to,” David explained. Heather’s passion for life and dance, combined with her charm and intelligence, assure that The Downtown Dance Community will provide everyone an opportunity to get rid of “that little something they’re carrying around.”  “For me personally it’s so much more than that, although I’d say that to anybody that asked me, ‘Hey I just think everyone should dance!’” Heather elatedly exclaims. “But the more philosophical explanation is that you dance because it feels good. You dance because it’s good for your soul; you dance because it lifts the burden off your shoulders you know, for maybe an hour of your day. And everyone’s got a little something they’re carrying around.”