- Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer
Dancer Sodanne Browne, caught in the air, at the In Motion Dance and Fitness Centre, Village Plaza, Constant Spring Road, on Saturday September 23.

Tapping her feet, Sodanne Browne recounts her journey as a dancer.

"My mother told me that I used to dance from I was in her womb - she sang at the Jonkanoo Lounge (and) she said I used to kick her to the beat of the music."

Browne has moved a long way from baby kicks to setting up a professional dance studio. Almost a year ago, with the support and inspiration of Suzanne Mahfood-Ho-Tai and Kevin Webb, she began the Professional Moves Dance Company. The company, which utilises the studios at In Motion in the Village Plaza, has given Browne the opportunity to share her aesthetic imaginings, enlighten the public on the viability of dance and create a positive place for young dancers.

Professional Moves Dance Company offers classical forms, such as jazz, tap and ballet, folk forms, street and popular styles. "We are not really straight jazz or modern - we mix up everything and put the young flavour into it," Sodanne explains.

Training

Browne's training began at Vaz Preparatory School, where she participated in the weekly dance activity and was given the role of Madam Pompadour in the school's musical pantomime Samantha and the Seven Do Bees when she was ten.

She went on to Immaculate Conception High School, where the lack of a dance programme in the curriculum did not deter her path towards dance. In ninth grade, inspired by 'Riverdance', she joined a tap dance activity led by Antonio Dennis in the Tuesday afternoon sessions at Immaculate. In tenth grade she learnt of In Motion Dance and Fitness Centre which offered tap, jazz, modern and ballet. She enrolled in all forms and credits her teachers Suzanne Mahfood-Ho-Tai and Kevin Webb as the dancers who offered an enjoyable learning environment, which influenced her career. "You have to find good teachers to like what you do," she says.

She continued dancing at In Motion and while preparing for business-oriented A'level subjects in sixth form, she started the Immaculate Dance Club that offered tap dance every Tuesday. On leaving high school, she enrolled in the three-year dance, theatre and production programme at Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts. It prepared her for the demands of being a professional dancer and increased her repertoire of not only classical forms, but also Jamaican folk forms. Currently, she leads the Immaculate Dance Club and teaches at In Motion.

A powerful force

Browne believes, "Dancing is powerful and you must be a powerful force to be a part of it - or you'll get thrown about." She hopes to be a creative force in the expansion of the dancer's niche in Jamaica. She continuously gives thanks for all she has accomplished, as she is aware that it's not easy to make a living from just being a dancer. A reality supported by Professor Nettleford, head of the National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) who believes "one cannot go blindly into dance." He suggests teaching dance as a viable option, "as it prepares an audience and teaches young persons discipline and concentration."