Cochrane athlete James Wiebe has found his stride in dance.
“I was around eight or nine and I wasn’t really good at other sports. I sort of was naturally good at dance,” the Eurythmics Dance Studio student recalled with a smile.
Wiebe was one of more than 800 dancers who competed at the 2017 Dance Invasion festival last weekend at RockPointe Church, and part of a smaller handful of male competitors.
Hip hop was his first dance style, and the St. Timothy’s High School teenager has since branched out to ballet, jazz and contemporary. He practises at Eurthymics about 10 hours a week, and also helps out teaching younger students.
He knows his gender sets him apart from most of the crowd around him, but said he doesn’t think much about it because he feels so welcomed as a member of the community.
“If you’re a male dancer, people will automatically look to you,” he said. “I think it’s just mainly showing that male dancers can do
Wiebe meditates before each performance to help him create a brain-body connection that allows him to deliver his routines on stage. His final showing on Saturday afternoon was a fluid and emotional contemporary journey – a culmination of his love of acting, music and movement.
“I get to sort of embrace what my character is,” he said. “If you have an angry face, the energy goes all through your veins through the tips of your fingers.”
Eurythmics owner Jodi Aasen said it is “pretty rare” to have male dancers like Wiebe in Cochrane, and she’s proud of how he’s grown as a technician and a performer during his time with the club.
“What makes any good dancer is their passion,” said Aasen. “He’s so good at it … he gets along with everybody.”
Wiebe’s goal is to continue dancing and possibly become a full-time teacher after he’s finished high school. Until then, he’s happy he has found his second home – and made friends as close as family.
“I’m close with a lot of people at my studio,” he said. “We’re really tight. They’re like my role models. I adore them.”
