At Seeing Through, we're dedicated to seeing ballet becoming an accessible and vibrant part of our community's fabric. Adult dancers deserve more opportunities to engage with ballet outside of of technique classes. As an art form steeped in such a rich and long history, ballet has often been hesitant to adapt or update, but we think that everyone deserves to see ballet in a more modern context. To reach this lofty goal, Seeing Through will host workshops, class series, and produce company video projects, all with dancers from our community in the Greater Seattle Area.
Our dance community in Seattle has so many wonderful opportunities to dance and grow as an adult dancer, but ballet is one area where the ability to explore balletic choreography is limited for adult dancers and those that do exist often require a lot of commitment, both monetarily and time. Seeing Through will seek to only supplement upon existing opportunities that are provided to our ballet community by our beloved studios.
Seeing Through was borne from founder Riley McGaff's desire to be able to dance classical ballet choreography beyond the short combinations offered in traditional ballet classes. The mission to create a community ballet company that creates dance videos also came from a lack of Riley being able to find that type of content when seeking inspiration. In almost every other style of dance, if you search YouTube or Instagram you can find a plethora of choreographed videos to be inspired by, but there is nowhere near as many ballet videos being created and shared. This is largely because most ballet takes place in large companies that are dependent on ticket sales, or institutions that aren't as well versed in media production. It can also be very intimidating to try and partake in programs at ballet centric schools as an adult non-professional dancer, so it is Seeing Through's hope that we can foster an environment to encourage people to explore ballet!
Seeing Through was chosen as the name because it has many interpretations and associated meanings. Seeing something Through is an accomplishment. Seeing Through something is about finding the truth of a matter. To be See Through is to be known to your deepest depths, while to be Seen Through is to have all your layers revealed.
Co-Artistic Director
Annie St.Marie (he/she/they) is a dance artist from the greater Seattle area. They trained for eight years at the Pacific Northwest Ballet School and was greatly inspired to become an educator because of their own teachers, namely current PNB School Principal Marisa Albee, Lisa Dillinger, Victoria Pulkkinen, and Bruce Wells. Annie went on to graduate magna cum laude with their BFA in Dance from Cornish College of the Arts through the dance department's three year Accelerated Degree Program where they discovered a passion for modern and jazz dance. Throughout her career, Annie has been fortunate to dance in work by Bruce Wells, Michelle Miller, Wade Madsen, Alia Swersky, Bruce McCormick, Bruno Roque, and Danielle Agami. In addition to being an educator and performer, Annie has created many works for both eXit SPACE (takePAUSE) and Westlake Dance Center (Sign of the Times). They love to choreograph for large casts with their largest cast so far consisting of nearly 40 dancers.
Annie is extremely passionate about helping dancers heal from past dance trauma and strives to make ballet class a safe haven for every dancer that walks in the door. This season, Annie is looking forward to working as Artistic Director for the newly announced Seeing Through Ballet Company in Seattle. Contact Annie at anniest.mariedance@gmail.com
Co-Artistic Director
Riley is the Studio Director of Westlake Dance Center in Seattle, WA. Riley's dance journey began at the age of 28, and since then dance has become a significant part of their life. The first ballet class ignited a newfound passion for dance and personal growth in the art form. Riley's performance debut was in the Westlake Dance Center's 2023 Sign of the Times show, guided by Annie St.Marie. Performing transformed Riley's initial passion into a deep desire to create within the dance world, leading them to seek an outlet that matched their skills and vision. The support and community at Westlake Dance Center have been crucial to Riley’s development as a dancer, inspiring the creation of Seeing Through. With Riley's experience producing WDC's annual Sign of the Times show, and over a decade of experience in leading creative teams to produce creative content for business marketing/design he brings a wealth of knowledge to help develop projects with Seeing Through.
