Today we’d like to introduce you to Aidan Wolf.
Hi Aidan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I began my dance career and inevitably found my love of dance at the age of three in Colorado. Training with multiple studios such as Belliston Ballet, Kinetic Arts Dance, Artistic Fusion, Sweatshop, and throughout intensive programs with MODAS, Joffrey NYC & LA, Francisco Gella, SONDER, and Complexions Contemporary Ballet; in 2015 I completed my program at the Colorado Ballet Academy to then accept merit scholarships to study as a trainee at the Joffrey Ballet in New York City.
I then began my professional career with Arch Ballet in Manhattan, New York, and taught for Virginia Beach Ballet Academy prior to joining Complexions Contemporary Ballet Company. I spent the next 4 seasons with Complexions working and touring performing work set by choreographers such as Dwight Rhoden, Desmond Richardson, and Jae Man Joo across the United States as well as throughout Israel, Latvia, and Germany. Following this, I was casted to perform with the Queer The Ballet at the Joyce Theatre in 2023.
I then spent the spring season as a company artist with Zikr Dance Ensemble and have just recently concluded my third season with Vitacca Ballet as a company artist performing work by artists such as Garrett Smith, Alana Jones, Micaela Taylor, Beth Twigs, Cherice Barton, Sean Carmon, Tina Bohnstedt, Helene Simoneau and others.
I also found my love of teaching and choreographing early on, around age 16, and have continued my work as an educator, being named Studio Company director with Vitacca Ballet School, airing both student and professional choreography across several platforms with Vitacca Ballet, Vdanse, Studio G, The Woodlands Ballet Academy, and others, premiering top placing works at YAGP, ADC/IBC, and across several additional local and national performative competitions.
Most recently, I have been named the new Artist Development Director at The Dance Barre and am Co-Director, Co-Founder, dancer, and choreographer for KODA Contemporary Ballet Company with our first performance on August 8th at The Match. With my wife Sarah Kohles and myself presenting, directing, choreographing, and dancing for KODA, I am incredibly grateful for how my training and career thus far has led me to a place where I can air work that I am not only proud to present as a choreographer but as an artist. We at KODA strive to expand the boundaries of contemporary ballet while making art that sparks conversation and leaves a lasting impact on all audiences and invite all dance enthusiasts to come witness The Opening Act on August 8th.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As with any other artist, success comes as a result of all experiences, both good and bad, and oftentimes art is a reflection of hardship, which allows for something beautiful to grow as a depiction of struggle.
I value all of the moments throughout my career where although it wasn’t always easy, the learning experiences were tremendous. Having to undergo surgery on my FHL following a tour in Germany where I experienced a ruptured muscle, a blood clot, and a tearing FHL, was extremely difficult, and the physical therapy to recover was even more so. Living in Manhattan at the time, getting around on foot was not as easy when one was out of commission, and going through the mental battle of not being in my prime shape and not being able to train the way I have conditioned my body and mind to be used to was overwhelming.
Past physical injury, as my career expanded I witnessed several financial and mental obstacles as a company artist, those of which I have grown significantly from and find such value in being able to take these lessons and put them towards building a strong, positive, collaborative experience within my own company, which is no easy feat as I have learned.
I have been extremely lucky with the opportunities provided to me and the people who have surrounded me, beginning with my own mother, who as a previous professional ballet dancer, was an incredible role model both as a dancer and a person. Through all the ups and downs, I choose both as an artist and a human to exhibit the beauty in the madness and take all hardship and success as a stepping stone for the greatness yet to be achieved.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Over the last 9 years within the professional realm of this occupation, I have excelled and reveled in contemporary and contemporary ballet. Contemporary ballet in particular demonstrates a never ending yearn to combine the technique and structure found in ballet with the pure, raw artistry found in contemporary which is why I used this as the founding style of KODA Contemporary Ballet. As a dancer, teacher, and choreographer, I find unbridled passion as the baseline for successful movement and creation, something I have worked to utilize within all of my work as an artist, and display within the founding goals and work at KODA Contemporary Ballet. The combination of freedom and rigidity even within purely contemporary works leads to incredible demonstrations of athleticism, beauty, and passion taking the stage. As an artist I am known for taking up space, as when I am onstage, my priority is to make art seen, not always as something that should appear “easy”, but something that holds value in its effort. I always speak to the ability to comprehend and facilitate the physicality behind the raw effort of movement and make it something undeniably outstanding. I seek to push the boundaries of athleticism within movement and connect pure humanity to artistic creations and stylistic choices, and I choose to believe that this sets me apart from others.
I hope to continue to introduce contemporary ballet as a leading style of movement within the arts and break the stereotypes that knowledge and experience is most directly connected to age. I have been overlooked for my age as it has been seen as a deficit, but starting college and my professional career at 13, is one of the things I am most proud of, and can confidently say has provided me with the wherewithal to create, instruct, and work the way that I do. I aim to be perceived as “breaking the glass ceiling” of what is possible within the arts as the opportunities are endless!
What was your favorite childhood memory?
One of my favorite childhood memories would be the trip to California that I made with my family for me to attend the Joffrey Intensive experience with Josie Walsh. Looking back on my childhood summers being so full of such incredible training and adventures, I am so grateful for how that encouraged boundaries within my work life balance as an adult. I not only received top tier instruction with teachers that truly made me the artist I am today, but my mother also encouraged us to fully take advantage of our experience, going to Disneyland, Universal, and sightseeing on all of the time I had available outside of the intensive!
I want to encourage dancers to possess this healthy balance, as to be a productive artist, we must be a productive human first, and that comes from witnessing life and all it has to offer. The search to find this balance is everlasting but such a worthy venture and I am so lucky that so many moments within my childhood encouraged this!
Pricing:
- KODA: The Opening Act: $30 per ticket
Contact Info:
- Website: COMPANY: KODAcontemporaryballet.com PERSONAL: https://sites.google.com/view/aidanwolf/home
- Instagram: COMPANY: @kodacontemporaryballet PERSONAL: @aidanh_kohleswolf
