Threads Dance Project

Threads has always been more than a dance company...

Help us raise $15k this 

Give to the Max Day and enter our 15th Anniversary strong!

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    For over a decade, The Karen L. Charles Threads Dance Project has been a transformative force in the Twin Cities Dance community. We're a community hub that cultivates and supports diverse dance artists at every career stage. From a child's first dance class to the professional dancer transitioning from choreography or teaching, Threads has always been a place where MN dance artists could turn to for resources, training, mentorship, and community. 

This Give To The Max Day, we're counting on community members like you to help us sustain this important work. 

Your support would allow us to boldly step into our next era—one where the arts, compassion, and community arguably matter more than ever.

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    For 15 years, Threads Dance Project has been a place where dance transforms lives. It is where young people gain confidence, professional dancers are valued and supported, and communities come together to move. It's where we bring our mission to examine, expose, and celebrate the threads that connect us to life. In short...

Threads is more than a dance company. 

Threads is a home.

“Being a part of Threads has allowed me to make community connections by inspiring the next generation of dancers as a teacher through the Youth Dance Project program. I have also been able to be a part of several collaborations with Stages Theatre Company as a choreographer and representative of Threads.”  

 — Malia Craft, Company Member & YDP Instructor

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“It is offering a safe space for all people to move their bodies together as a form of activism, protest, love, and care. It has impacted my outlook on community connections and the power of the arts."

—Lily Conforti, Company Member & Nexus Instructor

       

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I can't possibly quantify what Threads has given me. For the past decade, it has been my foundational artistic home...Ten years of weekly classes, performances in esteemed venues across the Twin Cities and beyond, relationships forged with artists and communities, and endless means to explore what it means to be a dancer and to age as a dancer, have been a real gift."  —Sara Karimi, Company Member

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“Thank you for everything you do for my dancers! I danced as a child, and it was taken away from me at a crucial point in my life because my mother couldn’t afford it. It changed me, for sure. I miss dancing. Thank you for the gift of opportunity to put dance in their lives!" —YDP Parent

Help sustain this cherished community with a donation today! 

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Our Story

Tapestries Choreography Program: As an African American woman, Karen knows the barriers that are unique to Black, Indigenous, and of color people, and all women in the world of dance and choreography. That’s why she started Tapestries, an annual professional choreographer development program that supports three emerging choreographers, with an emphasis on lifting up women and BIPOC artists. 

NextGen/Youth Dance Project: Threads engages youth in unique pre-professional dance training to provide much-needed holistic support of their minds, bodies, and creative spirits. Our mission is to train aspiring dancers and empower the next generation of young people. Students receive rigorous dance training twice a week during the school year, including ballet, modern, and jazz technique, improvisation, choreography, and courses on physical and emotional wellness. Ultimately, NextGen/Youth Dance Project seeks to develop fully realized dancers, creators, and community activists who are able to use performance in support of themselves and their community.

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