“An extremely liberating and expansive and challenging flight,” said Lauren Godla of DiRT and Glitter when asked what vertical dance is. “A totally new perspective on gravity and reality and what kind of movement is possible.” 

Godla has been doing vertical dance for 10 years with several productions under her belt and has shared that experience with youth in Del Norte County through the Roots and Wings Dance Camp. 

This camp was a three-day long day course where youth ages 14 to 24 learned the fundamentals of vertical dance and contemporary floor work. The camp’s training grounds for the vertical dance portions was a grove next to the Forks River Access and Boat Ramp near Hiouchi in the Six Rivers National Recreation Area. Enrollment was free thanks to funding from the Klamath Promise Neighborhood and the Yurok Tribe. Roots and Wings was the second vertical dance camp run by DiRT and Glitter with 8 youth participants.

Over the three days Godla and her colleagues, Kriss Rulifson, Kara Starkweather, Madeline Lawder and Nicole Casado moved through contemporary floor work exercises when the weather was uncooperative and taught the students how to fly when the weather was right.

“I am inviting a lot of play, and what maybe would feel like strangeness or weirdness,” Rulifson said, “things that are not familiar and comfortable to be able to be in a dance with those parts of ourselves too.” 

After the Roots and Wings Dance Camp concluded, a community workshop was held where everyone could come to the grove and try out vertical dance for themselves. Several of the participants from camp also attended the community workshop so they could get more time with the trees. 

To keep up with Dirt and Glitter’s productions and further projects you can find them on their Facebook page.