Our first 10-week series brings together Contemporary Modern and Contemporary/Classic Jazz in two five-week blocks.

September 19 -  October 17
Contemporary Modern with Jessie Young

October 24 - November 21
Jazz with Rosie Sharkey

Classes are 90-minute, physically engaged practices with a shared investment in training, musicality, coordination, strength, spatial awareness, and learning through repetition.

Each teacher brings a distinct dance form and perspective to that shared practice.

O.PEN Dance currently offers intermediate adult dance classes.

Your experience does not need to be recent. Maybe you danced throughout childhood, trained in college, haven't been in a studio for ten years, or currently dance every week.

Previous experience matters. So does current practice.

Dance is built through consistent training, and this series is designed to give adults a place to build, rebuild, and deepen that practice.

You do not need to arrive at your best. You do need enough previous experience to know how to take a dance class.

1. Arrive ready to dance.

Class begins at 10:00 AM. Give yourself enough time to arrive, change, settle in, and do any individual warm-up your body needs.

If you are more than 5 minutes late, please join us another week. Beginning together supports the safety and focus of the room. We lock the door after 5 minutes of class. 

2. Come ready to move.

Wear clothing you can move comfortably in and bring a water bottle. No street shoes are allowed on the dance floor. Individual teachers will let you know if specific footwear is needed.

3. Be ready for an intermediate pace.

You do not need to know everything. You do need to be ready to learn movement, practice independently, receive feedback, and keep working when something is challenging.

4. Take responsibility for your body.

Modify, rest, or opt out when you need to. You are responsible for making choices that support your body and your dancing.

If you have an access need that would be helpful for the teacher to know, connect with us before class.

5. Take care of the room and each other.

We are guests of Port Angeles City Ballet. Come fragrance-free, keep phones away during class, bring only water onto the dance floor, listen when someone is teaching, and help us leave the space better than we found it.

Fall | 10 classes
$120

5-Class Pass
$70

Drop-in
$20

Work Exchange Available for discounted classes. Email for available options.

Jessie Young

Jessie Young is a dance artist, choreographer, and teacher with more than 30 years of focused training and work in dance. She grew up in Port Angeles, where her early training began with Sylvia Wanner at Ballet Workshop and Mary Marcial at Port Angeles Dance Center.

Over the past 20 years, her work has taken her through dance communities in Salt Lake City, Chicago, Seattle, and New York, as well as universities and dance festivals nationally and internationally. She holds a master's degree in choreography and pedagogy and currently teaches Modern Dance at Port Angeles City Ballet.

Rosie Sharkey

Rosie Sharkey is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher of several styles of dance with a focus on various forms of Jazz as well as rhythm and broadway styles of Tap dance. Inspired by her teacher Marie Stinnett, (of Marie Stinnett Dance in Campbell, CA) Rosie is a strong believer in foundational techniques, a holistic approach to training, and commitment to the work of being a dancer from the administrative to the artistic.  

Experiences learning, working and creating in Los Angeles in her 20s on projects from dance companies and live theatre, to music videos and television pilots have informed her ability in her 30s and 40s to integrate and return to dance again and again everywhere she has lived. Rosie is a full time yoga and dance instructor, currently teaching classes at Studio 360, The Well Movement Co-Op, and Port Angeles YMCA.