Austin studio, school, dance troupe share a single focus

By Neil Ellis Orts

For two women in Austin, Texas, modern dance is the center of the universe. This universe is kept spinning by three separate but interconnected entities—a physical dance space, a dance school offering classes for serious adults, and a dance company. Both the women and their businesses are devoted to the teaching, making, and performing of modern dance.

Kate Warren (far right, in magenta shirt) leads a yoga session. (Photo by L. Renee Nunez)

Just as Kate Warren and Kathy Dunn Hamrick share that vision, they also share ownership of Hamrick/Warren Dance, a professional school of modern dance. Separately, Hamrick is artistic director of Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company, and Warren is director of Café Dance, a space in a strip mall with a small office and a single studio (which is also used for performances). Café Dance rents the space to the company and the school, as well as other like-minded tenants.

As a business model, what Warren and Hamrick have in Austin may not work for everyone. But for some, it’s a symbiosis of a school, a company, and a studio worth considering. Keeping the integrity of their vision for modern dance foremost, they have survived for just less than two decades, with no end in sight.

It all began with the school.

Hamrick attended the University of Texas at Austin as an undergraduate and moved to Austin permanently in 1989, after completing her MFA at Florida State University. Warren, already a prominent figure in Austin’s dance community, was teaching for another dance school. Hamrick enrolled in Warren’s class and later taught at the same studio. In 1991, when Warren decided to start her own school, she asked Hamrick to join her. The two women had found in each other complementary spirits. Warren favored Cunningham technique and Hamrick cites Limón and Lewitzky as major influences, but they shared a passion for modern dance.

Then there was the studio.

After renting space from a Montessori school for three years, Warren got wind of the Café Dance space, then managed by another dancer. It was primarily a children’s ballet and jazz school, but Warren and Hamrick found that they could work their class schedule around the existing classes. So Hamrick/Warren Dance rented the space for about a year.

Then the other dancer decided to give up the studio and asked Warren if she wanted to take it over. She did. She talked to Hamrick about doing it together, but Hamrick didn’t feel she was in a position to take on managing a space. Warren says, “I called my husband and said, ‘Mark, this space is open and I really want to take it.’ He said, ‘How much is it going to cost?’ and I said, ‘Who cares?’ ” She laughs at the memory and adds, “I was so ready to do it.”

Warren started looking at what she needed to do to make her rent each month. Charles MacInerney, a longtime Austin yoga teacher, was already a renter there and Warren kept him on. Warren didn’t want to teach kids but knew children’s classes were important, so she engaged Michele Owens-Pearce, who was already known in local public schools as a modern dance teacher. Warren says, “I liked the way she taught, and she was the only person I knew who was teaching modern dance to children.”

More income came when Warren started renting to other choreographers and companies and producing performances in the studio. “The most important thing to me was teaching and performing. I knew from the beginning that I had to rent out space; otherwise I wouldn’t be able to dance.” Hamrick/Warren also continued to rent the space, maintaining a separate business identity from Café Dance. All rent checks go to Warren, and the two teachers pay themselves an hourly wage for classes they teach.

Finally, there was the resident company.

After years of producing independent showcases for her own choreography, Hamrick decided to form a dance company. Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company officially debuted in 1999 and has performed from coast to coast. Warren was one of the original company members, but it is Hamrick’s company all the way. It also has the status of “resident company” at Café Dance. Hamrick holds her board meetings, fund-raisers, and other auxiliary events (such as classes and performances for KDHDC’s public school outreach program, New Art Kinnections) at the studio. As resident company, KDHDC gets priority when choosing times in the space, but all the troupe’s events are rentals for Café Dance.

“I called my husband and said, ‘Mark, this space is open and I really want to take it.’ He said, ‘How much is it going to cost?’ and I said, ‘Who cares?’ ” —Kate Warren

In short, three distinct but interconnected businesses function in this small space. Hamrick and Warren are adamant about keeping a clear division between the school and company. The school’s purpose is to teach modern dance, not serve as an income producer to help support the company—which might lead to decisions that compromise the women’s artistic vision. Hip-hop might bring in more money, but they’re not interested. They offer no ballet, no jazz. All three entities exist for the promotion of modern dance.

“So this is all about being able to teach modern dance, perform modern dance, create dancers of modern dance,” Hamrick says.

“It is more like a vision of what I think is good for modern dance,” Warren says. “That’s always been in my mind. How do you keep modern dance alive?” To that end, she is very selective about who rents Café Dance. “I try to pick people who are like-minded, have the same sensibility, that they feel the same way about it that we do, that it’s a beautiful space to provide for other people; emotionally, spiritually, artistically.” Whether renters offer yoga, belly dancing, or NIA technique, Warren makes sure they are in tune with a broader ethos of health and spirituality. And no shoes are allowed.

Warren and Hamrick are also clear on how they want students to find them. They do little advertising for the school. Other than an occasional listing or program ad and a website that’s only about five years old, they’ve always depended on word of mouth from their students. The women not only want to make sure that potential students know what kind of instruction they’ll receive, but they also want to have a feel for who the students are and what they already know and understand about modern dance. Consequently, they usually invite potential students to watch a class before paying for one.

They make affordable classes a priority, especially for students, who pay only $7 per class. “Our clientele is different from most studios’,” Hamrick says. “I’m guessing most dance studios are geared toward kids, and they have parents who will pay for those classes. Our clientele is college students, young people working, single people, and they have to pay for their own classes.” Currently no dance class costs more than $13, with discounts available for professional dancers and multiple class rates available to non-professionals.

Warren estimates they average 40 students per week and that the enrollment is split fairly evenly among students, professionals, and non-professionals. “We talked about making our classes affordable so people could come multiple times and to build the modern dance community,” she explains.

Having a resident company at Café Dance helps the school get students, but then the school helps the company grow. Hamrick seldom holds auditions and instead picks new company members from her classes. “I need to know them very well, because it’s important to me how they fit into the group,” she says.

“Community” is a word that recurs when talking about Hamrick/Warren Dance. Beau Hancock, now pursuing his MFA in dance at Temple University, danced one season with KDHDC. He landed in Austin after working in New York City as a dancer and wondering if the dancing life was for him. Taking class at Hamrick/Warren “provided such a rich environment artistically, but also very much a feeling of family,” Hancock says. “One of the reasons New York was so brutal for me is that it is an incredibly lonely place when you don’t have a community. In a lot of ways, I’m still on this path in the dance world because of [the Hamrick/Warren] experience.”

 Andrea Beckham, senior lecturer in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas, says she often refers students to Hamrick/Warren. “You know you can send a student who is very interested in modern and contemporary dance and they’ll get incredible training and also be hooked into a community of like-minded modern dance folk,” she says.

All talk of building community, keeping class prices low, and focusing only on modern dance aside, a question arises: if these women were single, could they afford to live on their earnings as dance professionals?

Hamrick answers first. “I teach at St. Edward’s University, I teach at Austin Community College, I have the company, and I teach at Café Dance, so those are my four jobs. Between my four jobs I could.”

Warren laughs and says, “I guess I’d have to be her roommate because I couldn’t afford it.” Although she manages to do a little better than break even, she says she relies on her husband’s income to live the life she does.

Hamrick adds, “But you make choices based upon what your resources are.”

“I probably wouldn’t be able to perform because I wouldn’t have time,” Warren says. “I’d have to teach a whole lot more. I don’t teach half as much as I used to, when I was single.”

And there’s one more question: why modern dance? “Because it is truth,” Warren says. “To me, in order to express yourself in modern dance, you can’t lie. Merce Cunningham has a great quote. We are ‘not to show off, but to show.’ ”

Hamrick cites “movement invention” as the main reason she loves modern dance. “Three choreographers can go into a studio with the same intention but come out with very different dances,” she says. “That is still what excites me as a teacher and choreographer and human being—the endless possibilities to experience something new and meaningful.”