Kate Webb

Not many people get the chance to pursue their passions for a living. A career in the arts can often be an uphill battle, but despite all the hardships, alumna Kate Webb has made it work.

Graduating from ARGS in 2012, Kate Webb is a former Dance major who kept up at the craft even after graduation. She now dances with the Verb Ballet in Cleveland, Ohio. Before that, though, she had a traineeship with the Richmond Ballet in her junior year, which helped prepare her for the professional world. “Ms. Hodal was incredibly supportive and did everything in her power to get me that professional experience,” she said. Her teachers were “open-minded” and helped her meet her academic requirements while also helping her make connections and gain experience in the world of dance. “[Dance] makes me feel like my fullest self,” Webb said. “It’s hard when I am not doing it… I feel my most saturated life in the sense that everything’s brighter. It makes me feel happy.”

Though an injury prevented her from taking part in seasonal productions of The Nutcracker this year, Webb still has a diverse repertoire of roles—she’s played the part of the Snow Queen in previous productions of the show, Tinker Bell in Peter Pan, and the Purple Woman in Songs Without Words, to name a few. She’s also performed internationally. “Compared to the us most developed countries have a greater appreciation for the arts in general, including dance,” she explained. “For example, when we were in Cuba, we were treated like royalty… there was a lot more general interest from the public. Compared to when we went to Taiwan, which is very developed… we had the highest production value when we were there… we were treated more professionally in that regard, but the overall population didn’t have as much interest.” Though her performance in Cuba was less advanced than the one in Taiwan, Webb said, she loved how the medium of dance brought everyone there together.

“Everyone can speak dance all over the world,” Webb said. “There’s an innate part of us that can move when we hear a rhythm that expands over any dialect.” Webb has also performed in parts of eastern Europe, including Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. “I really think makes me feel the most connected to people when im moving with them.”

Webb’s connections from high school have lasted her a long time, too. Her favorite high school memory was one of Driver’s Ed.—“Dancers couldn’t take PE because it didn’t fit with our schedule,” Webb said, “[Ms. Hodal] tried to incorporate dance into it.” This included improvised dance interpreting the movements of deer running across the road, among other things. She remembers her time at ARGS with fondness. “I always had a lot of Musical Theatre major friends,” she said and noted that if she had to choose a different major, she would’ve picked Musical Theatre.

To any students looking to pursue a career in dance, Webb left this advice: “If you really love it, just keep going no matter what because there’s so much rejection, and so much questioning, and that will stop a lot of people, but if that’s what you wanna do that won’t stop you… [ARGS] really is a special group of people, and you don’t even realize it when you’re there because you’re just high school students.”