Dance Council of North Texas to Present DANCE PLANET 19, Featuring LaQuet Sharnell Pringle, This Spring

By: Jan. 20, 2015
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Dance Council North Texas presents Dance Planet 19 -- the fantastic feast of dance featuring triple-threat Broadway star and Dallas native LaQuet Sharnell Pringle, guest artist of this FREE, community-oriented, weekend dance festival. Dance Planet is now in its 19th year.

Take free musical theater, jazz, and hip hop classes with powerhouse LaQuet, who is best known for her successes on Broadway in The Lion King, Lysistrata Jones, Memphis, and Sweet Charity. LaQuet started her dance training at age 14 in Dallas. She graduated from Booker T. Washington HSPVA, and studied at The Dallas Powerhouse of Dance and The Centre for Dance. LaQuet went on to North Carolina School of the Arts, then off to Broadway, and the rest is history.

A must-see is the noontime Q + A with LaQuet who will talk about her amazing Broadway career. "When I saw The Wiz National Tour in Chicago, at the time I had to be six or seven, I clearly remember seeing Stephanie Mills play Dorothy and I remember thinking 'I want to be like her,'" says LaQuet. Asked what her favorites roles have been if she had to pick, she replied, "Dorothy, in The Wiz. Dreams do come true."

Currently residing in Austin, she's an adjunct professor in the Musical Theater Department at Texas State University. LaQuet also teaches at Ballet Austin and Tru Dance Project, and is the founder and artistic director of Fearless Young Artists, an organization devoted to providing extensive creative arts education to diverse youth who are interested in careers in the arts.

Dance Planet 19 features 30 free classes from samba to swing; African to Middle Eastern; circus silks to two-step; tap to contemporary; ballet to Pilates; a special Twitter-feed scavenger hunt; and two extraordinary afternoon Performance Showcases with over 80 dance companies and more than 1,000 performers from the North Texas region. Each Showcase culminates with a solo performance by LaQuet.

Dance Planet is America's largest FREE dance festival and appropriate for all ages.

Schedules will be posted online at thedancecouncil.org.

Planet photos courtesy of Daniel Fermaint / fermaintphotography.com.



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