Melanie Buttarazzi is a professional dancer. She loves movement and performing for the masses, but her most significant memories involve the time she spent working for outreach programs in in high school and university. In 2014, a few years after moving from Toronto to LA, she realized that local youth were lacking opportunities to take dance classes. She began building a program using dance as a vehicle for confidence-building and life-skill development for foster and at-risk youth.
“I just knew the power of dance, not only in my own life and in my peers’ lives, but I saw how these outreach programs were so helpful for at-risk youth,” she said. “They’re problem solving in class. I believe dancers are the best problem solvers. We know how to instantly figure something out. We’re always given different challenges and obstacles, just in choreography alone.”
After dancing and touring all her life, mostly with her father, flamenco guitarist Robert Michaels, Buttarazzi arrived in LA around 2010. She worked as a commercial dancer, performing in a JLo music video and a VMA performance with Pitbull. A few years in, she met a 20-year-old former foster youth, with whom she shared her idea about creating a dance program. He detailed his own life story and asked if she had considered serving foster youth. His last words were: “I know you don’t know me, and I don’t really know you, but you have to do this. These kids need a program like this.” . . .
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Jessica Koslow 