When Katie Elliott and her late husband, Jim LaVita, founded 3rd Law Dance/Theater in Boulder in 2001, she had no idea that their passion project would evolve into what it is today.
Nearly 25 years later, the nonprofit contemporary dance company is a beloved community staple. According to Elliott, 3rd Law has grown from random rehearsal schedules for project-based artists to consistent class schedules and a company of dancers who rehearse for full seasons of boundary-pushing performances.
Since 2018, 3rd Law has also offered dance classes for individuals with Parkinson’s disease. The initiative started with one class per week, but has since blossomed into a robust schedule of three in-person and three online classes per week (plus one offering in Spanish). Despite all this growth, the organization is still rooted in Elliott and LaVita’s founding principles.
“We are known for blending movement with intellectual ideas—our work often engages with science, philosophy and social themes, making it more than just performance,” Elliott says.
A Shared Vision
Elliott and LaVita met in Boulder in the late 1990s, when they bonded over their shared love of different dance styles. Classically trained, Elliott started her ballet career under the tutelage of late local dance legend Barbara Demaree at Boulder’s Ballet Arts. She performed and trained in Chicago, London and New York before returning to the Front Range. Meanwhile, LaVita was a mathematician and anthropologist who also studied dance ethnology. They became partners in life and art.
On January 1, 2001—the first day of the new millennium—they founded 3rd Law to bring to life their shared vision for contemporary dance performances that unite individual and collective movements while often spotlighting issues that are important to the Boulder community. (Written numerically, the date is 1/01/01, which is a meaningful code in mathematics, Elliott says). Through the company, the couple created a lineup of original multimedia performances featuring classical, modern, theatrical, historical, and traditional dance.
“[Jim] was primarily a folk dancer, which I found really interesting, and he found my contemporary classical dance background very interesting,” Elliott says. “So all of our collaborations were really about an idea that needed to be expressed in a certain way rather than a specific technique that was being honored.”
In 2016, the Carson Brierly Giffin Dance Library—a Denver-based entity dedicated to the documentation and representation of the world of dance in the Rocky Mountain region—honored the pair with the Legends of Dance award for their contributions to the arts in Colorado. When LaVita died in 2017, 3rd Law’s supportive dance community helped Elliott continue to fulfill their original mission of providing a welcoming space for artists to come together.
Collaboration and Community
3rd Law offers a regular schedule of technique classes, which are open to the community but geared toward intermediate/advanced professional dancers. Held at either Frequent Flyers Aerial Dance Studio in Boulder or at the Colorado Conservatory of Dance in Broomfield, the classes are taught by Elliott or by company members Page Jenkins and Jamie Schuler. 3rd Law is funded by grants, so there’s a suggested fee of $15, but attendees are welcome to pay what they can.
Classes and rehearsals are collaborative, which is a nod to the company’s name and ethos. Its name was inspired by English physicist Isaac Newton’s third law of motion: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
“The third law speaks to our broader philosophy—art doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it is shaped by everyone who is involved in the creative process of art making,” Elliott says.
One example of 3rd Law’s synergistic process is how Elliott works with the dancers. The company currently consists of 10 artists, most of whom have been with 3rd Law for a decade, but some performances involve larger casts. In rehearsals and classes, she’s dedicated to giving participants prompts rather than ultra-specific directions. “All our work is original—it’s either my choreography or my choreographic direction,” she says. “But I always think people are going to do their movements more organically than they’re going to do mine … If you’re doing it perfectly, then you’re doing it wrong. Because some of the best choreography comes from a mistake—a beautiful error.”
Elliott sees 3rd Law as a way to not only create thought-provoking artistic work, but also to foster a sense of community. She wants the company to be inclusive, and for dance to be a vessel for well-being and connection. While professional dancers are typically on the younger side, 3rd Law’s artists range in age from 23 to 50. “One of our guiding principles is to create a multigenerational social structure to support and honor a body dancing in all stages of life,” she says. “The artistic body is neither young nor old and comes in varying degrees of mobility. Creativity, by definition, has no boundaries.”
A Body in Motion Stays in Motion
Today, the company’s Dance for Parkinson’s program is one of the primary ways it supports dancers from all walks of life. The movement classes, which are designed specifically for individuals with Parkinson’s disease, are an offshoot of the research-backed “Dance for PD” model developed by the Mark Morris Dance Group in New York City. The program, which is offered in more than 300 communities around the world, was brought to Boulder by Viki Bromberg Psihoyos, a former New York City-based ballet dancer whose father lived with Parkinson’s disease.
When Elliott first watched one of Psihoyos’ Dance for Parkinson’s classes, she was immediately captivated. She began assisting Psihoyos and, in 2018, the classes came under the 3rd Law umbrella. Now, the company’s Dance for Parkinson’s instructors are trained in the “Dance for PD” method, which they pair with their backgrounds in ballet, jazz, samba, yoga, folk, tap and other dance forms to produce engaging—and impactful—classes for participants.
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurological disorder that affects movement, balance and coordination. Individuals with the disease experience symptoms such as stiffness, tremors and slower movements, which can cause them to lose their ability to move independently. As a result, many often lose their sense of community, too, Elliott says. The free classes not only give them an opportunity to improve their mobility, but also connect with individuals who may be grappling with similar challenges. Some participants even accidentally leave their walking canes behind after class because they’re moving so well, Elliott says.
Participants don’t need to have any previous dance experience to attend the one-hour classes, and their friends, family members and caretakers are also invited to join. Instructors encourage participants not to worry about how they look doing the various moves and to instead focus on having fun and moving their bodies through space. It’s an upbeat, positive, communal experience that brings people together.
“When you walk into these classes, you’re walking into a room of vulnerability, where people are there to help each other, rather than a room where people are having to prove themselves and it is so beautiful,” she says. “We’re trying to get them to identify themselves as dancers, not just people with Parkinson’s.”
Elliott hopes to gain more support and funding for 3rd Law so it can offer more community classes, including Dance for Parkinson’s. “It’s a beautiful example of how dance can enhance quality of life,” she says.
