Life & Work with Lindsey Williams of West LA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lindsey Williams.

Lindsey, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Dance was my first love. I began ballet as a little girl and got serious about it by age 10, attending ballet school 6 days a week. During this time, I danced in New York, San Francisco and Seattle. Ballet doesn’t necessarily teach balance in life and by young adulthood I ended my professional ballet career with a leg injury and burnout.
I decided to then pursue dance in other veins, getting curious of other techniques. I attended Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle for modern dance, choreography and theater.
Althea Fantast was a modern dance troupe I co-founded with Erica Wilson and Annie Holden based out of the PNW. In 2010 modern dance videos were a fairly unexplored subject and we pursued how to create dance on film. During this time I was also teaching ballet, modern dance and Pilates.
During 2020, my husband and I moved to Los Angeles. I had been feeling stagnant with my art and decided to check out an aerial dance class with a friend. What I found in that class felt like the first time I had fallen in love with ballet. It was specifically a Lyra aerial class and it was excitingly and horribly challenging. I loved it.
Aerial arts was a whole world of movement that wasn’t even on my radar at the time and once I found it I dove fully in. It physically requires everything I have learned in dance throughout my life plus many other skills I’ve had to build over the years.
Early last year, I started honing my aerial teaching skills at Jagged Dance and Fitness. Teaching aerial to adults and kids has been another satisfying path. I love seeing the light in a students eyes when they’re having fun or grasp a skill they’ve been working on.
I’ve also had the pleasure of performing aerial and becoming a member of Cirque Party- an LA based aerial company that performs for hired events and birthday parties. They’re a multi-talented troupe and I’m excited to see where they go.
Aerial feels like flying, I don’t see ever stopping. I look forward to whatever else this art form has in store for my future.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It’s been a challenging but highly satisfying road. Anything worth doing is hardly ever easy. I’ve definitely learned that throughout my years in art. I sustained multiple injuries during my ballet career but I think the largest struggle was the emotional toll it took. It’s such a demanding art- physically, emotionally, spiritually even. But worth every hardship for the performances, for the self satisfaction and the discipline that was learned. I’ve been able to take that sense of discipline into modern dance and most recently aerial arts and because of that there’s been more and more growth and a sense of accomplishment.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m endlessly curious about what I don’t fully grasp creatively yet and because of that my dance career has taken me all over the map in the movement world.
My work is teaching, performing and creating movement. Whether I’m teaching Ballet, Lyra or Pilates, I know I’m in the right place because I can help people either achieve their goals or discover a part of themselves they didn’t even know was there in movement. That’s always personally fulfilling. I understand the body and movement in a way that I never would’ve if I didn’t pursue this path. I’m most proud of my professional ballet career, choreography I’ve created over the years and most recently, how I’ve applied myself to the aerial arts.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
My advice would be to keep going. Don’t stop. Consistency over time prevails over intense amounts of time spent on something and then stopping. That’s the one thing I’ve seen over the years- the people who have careers in the arts are the ones that just kept going and figuring out how to make it work even if they had to go through huge struggles.
I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that even though I’m working two restaurant jobs and I’m super tired- I can trust that it works out because I don’t stop practicing dance.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindsandlyra
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lindsey.wooton.1?mibextid=wwXIfr&mibextid=wwXIfr

Image Credits
Ngoc No (@knockingbirdcreative)
Joseph Lambert
David Truman