On a February evening when the temperature in Takotna, Alaska, has plunged to 25 below zero, the cramped multipurpose room of the Takotna Community Center holds what may be the smallest jazz dance class in America. Three students—two fourth-graders and a high school sophomore—mark time across a plywood floor while instructor Mara Ellison counts out a shuffle-ball-change from a laptop speaker propped on a folding chair.
"Again," Ellison says, clapping. "And this time, don't look at your feet."
Takotna is not a city. With a population of roughly 45 people, most of them Alaska Native, the remote interior village sits along the Upper Kuskokwim River, accessible only by plane, boat, or snowmachine for much of the year. There are no traffic lights, no restaurants, and certainly no dedicated dance studios. What Takotna does have is a battered wooden floor, a committed teacher, and a handful of young people who discovered jazz dance through a grant-funded after-school program and refused to let it disappear.
One Teacher, One Room, One Program
The Takotna Youth Arts Initiative launched in 2019 with a three-year rural education grant from the Alaska State Council on the Arts. Ellison, 34, was hired in the program's second year after spending six seasons as a chorus dancer in regional theater productions across the Pacific Northwest. She had never been to rural Alaska before her interview, which was conducted by video call from a coffee shop in Spokane.
"I thought I'd be here one year, max," Ellison admits. "Then I met these kids." She gestures toward her students, who are now attempting a simple jazz square in socks and borrowed jazz shoes—size 7 men's basketball sneakers for the smallest dancer, duct-taped at the toes.
The program runs two afternoons per week in winter, scaled back to one in summer when subsistence activities pull families toward fishing and berry camps. Ellison teaches ballet fundamentals, jazz technique, and basic choreography. There is no mirror. Students film themselves on their phones and review the footage to check their lines.
The Geography of Practice
Logistics define everything. Sheet music and proper dance flooring must be flown in from Anchorage, 220 miles southeast, on cargo planes that run when weather permits. Ellison takes most of her own continuing education online, though the village's satellite internet drops frequently during snowstorms. Last March, she saved for months to bring one student, 16-year-old Tasha Nicolai, to a weekend workshop in Fairbanks—the first time Nicolai had seen another jazz dancer in person.
"It was scary," Nicolai says. "Everyone else had been training since they were, like, five. I started at fourteen. But then I thought, I learned everything I know in a room with no mirror and bad internet. That has to mean something."
Nicolai now assists Ellison with the younger students and hopes to study elementary education, with a dance minor, at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
What Happens Next
The state arts grant that funds Ellison's position expires in June 2025. The village is working with the Iditarod Area School District to fold the program into the regular school budget, though administrators acknowledge the challenge: Takotna's school serves only about 15 students total, and every dollar competes with heating fuel, building maintenance, and special education services.
A community fundraising effort last fall raised $4,200 through a combination of online donations and a salmon bake in nearby McGrath, the regional hub. It is not enough to replace the grant, but it demonstrated local commitment.
"We're not trying to build a thriving academy," says Calvin Peter, the village council president, who helped organize the fundraiser. "We're trying to give our kids something they asked for. They saw jazz dance somewhere—YouTube, probably—and they wanted to try it. Now they have it. Keeping it is the hard part."
There is no Arctic Jazz Festival. No international acts or crowds from across the state. On performance days, the three students clear the foldable tables from the community center and dance for whoever can attend: parents, elders, the postmaster, the few visitors passing through on their way to Iditarod checkpoints.
Ellison keeps a video of their most recent "show" on her phone. The lighting is fluorescent and harsh. The music cuts out once when someone bumps the speaker. The dancers look startled, then laugh, then finish the routine in silence, counting aloud for one another.
"That's the one I show people when they ask what we do here," Ellison says. "That moment right there. They didn't stop."
