After 15 years, TU Dance measures how far it has come

Back in 2004, husband and wife team Uri Sands and Toni Pierce-Sands started TU Dance with an $8,000 grant from the Jerome Foundation.

Now the dance company and school run on a budget of just over $1 million.

This weekend TU Dance is celebrating its 15th anniversary with a series of concerts at The O'Shaughnessy in St. Paul. The performance features work by choreographers who have shaped TU Dance's aesthetic.

While TU Dance has grown exponentially, its mission — to make dance welcoming and accessible to all — remains the same.

"I've just been so amazed walking into this space here," said Ronni Favors, rehearsal director for Alvin Ailey's company in New York, on a visit to the company's school and rehearsal studio in St. Paul. "To see the variety of people — colors, ages, sizes, genders — coming into this space and being able to feel like it's home."

It's quite an accomplishment in a town where, 15 years ago, most of the people on stage, and in the audiences, were white.

Favors is in town to work with the company ahead of this weekend's concert. Both Sands and Pierce-Sands used to dance with the Ailey company.

Favors recalled one of Ailey's favorite sayings: "Dance came from the people, and it should always be delivered back to the people."

"And so what Toni and Uri have done here is just amazing, because they've really taken that to heart and brought it home," she said — they have created a school that's dead serious about the work, but with an environment that's joyful and generous.

Toni Pierce-Sands said they believed they could realize their dream, in part because they'd already lived it with Alvin Ailey's company.

"When you know there's a possibility in something, it gives you even more momentum, because you know it can happen," she said. "It doesn't mean it's going to happen the same way."

TU Dance's aesthetic combines ballet, traditional and contemporary West African dance with modern hip-hop rhythms and sensibilities. Approximately 60 percent of the school's nearly 150 students are young people of color.

TU Dance gets its name from Toni and Uri's first initials, but it also refers to the French word for "You." The founders say a core part of their mission is to make dance relevant and welcoming to everyone.

This last year, in particular, has been a remarkable one in terms of reaching new audiences. TU Dance collaborated with musician Justin Vernon of Bon Iver to create a performance called "Come Through," which they've taken to the Hollywood Bowl and the Kennedy Center. They'll bring it to the King Theater in Brooklyn this December.

Still, Uri Sands says the biggest challenge they face today is the same one they faced 15 years ago. Namely, reminding people that dance and dance education are a necessity, not a luxury, for a robust, healthy community.

"The work is constant," he said. "The work requires everything you have all the time. The work doesn't ever cease. We often say, you know, we're always in this process of becoming. There isn't quite an arrival. The destination is still ahead of us."

Sands said this weekend's performances at The O'Shaughnessy are about remembering those who helped to get them here, and investing in the dancers who represent the future.