El Cerrito-based Dance Group to Tour with Mongolian Troupe

Dancers from Katie's Dance Studio in El Cerrito who trained under teacher and choreographer Katie Maltsberger will perform in a special American-Mongolian "fusion" dance tour with a visting company of Mongolian dancers.

When we visited Katie Maltsberger at her long-established Katie's Dance Studio in El Cerrito, she was preparing to warm up some of her students for a class. We'd like to thank her for taking time out to talk about her teaching and her dance troupe's upcoming U.S. tour with a company of professional dancers from Inner Mongolia.

The tour, which includes a performance in San Francisco on May 4, follows earlier tours by the two groups performing together in China in 2010 and 2011. The joint program is titled "Fusion of Mongolia and Hollywood," with "Hollywood" being a kind of generic reference to American performers, who in this case are Katie's Dance Company. The attached poster provides details, and other posters can be seen on this Facebook page. This video from China offers a glimpse of their past tour there (there's a delay as it loads).

How long have you been teaching dance in El Cerrito? 45 years.

What is your history in El Cerrito? Born and raised in El Cerrito.

What brought you to the dance world? I had an interest in it since I was very young. When I started taking lessons I was three years old; I started teaching when I was 15. I didn’t even mean to open a dance studio per se, I just started teaching neighborhood kids. It developed and got bigger and bigger, and I had to go and open a studio because I had so many people.

Do you have any events coming up? We have quite a few events coming up. In 2010 and 2011, we were invited to tour with the China Inner Mongolia Autonomous Wulanmuqi and Hollywood Troupe. They are beautiful folk dancers—the best folk dancers around in their country. They do tours and shows all over. They have throat singers, a horse head guitar—they have things we don’t see here at all.

A horse head guitar? (laughs) It’s not really a horse head. We went over and it was a fusion of the American and Chinese culture. We did these shows and they were very well received both times—we went all over the country.

And this is your dance group working with theirs? Yes. It’s part of Katie’s Dance Studio, but these are the dancers who are very serious about it. They are here almost every day training. It’s called Katie’s Dance Studio and Company. They’re the ones that usually start when they are 3, 4, or 5 years old. It’s their life—now they’re 16, 17, 20 years old and they’ve been dancing all along. Now they are very accomplished dancers.

The producer of the shows, Gloria Di, invited their company to come over here. They’re coming on May 1or 2 to do rehearsals, and then we are going to do performances at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Stockton, Sacramento, Las Vegas and possibly LA.

We had such a great time (when we went to visit China). We saw the pandas. They treated us very, very well. It was all-expenses paid.

They invited you out there? How did they find out about you? We had done backup dancing for Gloria Di's singing about 10 years ago, and she remembered what good performers my kids were—nice kids, good company to work with. She invited us.

We're doing activities all of the time—it's just that we are so excited about this one. This is a big thing. ... They said that this is the first time that American dancers have gone to Inner Mongolia and done this type of a show. When they come, we have a big dinner we're going to at the Chinese consulate.

Do you still live in El Cerrito? No. About three years after I got married, I moved to Pinole and now we're in Briones. It's very remote. It's nice.

I've actually never met anyone who lives in Briones, I've always wondered about that area.Because there's only a few us us there! Well, we had a cattle drive go down the road about a month ago, left all kinds of...yeah.

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