When Daeyana (pronounced Day-AH-na) was growing up in the Bronx, her mom did gymnastics and played volleyball. She was eager for her only child to enjoy them too.
Daeyana did start out with gymnastics, but wanted to move in more ways. So, at age 5 she started at a dance school with a broad range of offerings: hip hop, tap, ballet, modern, even belly dancing. Daeyana lapped it all up, her mom was supportive all the way, and at 10 years old she was going to tap dancing conventions every weekend.
By the time she was ready for high school, dance was the center of Daeyana’s life, and she was good at it. So she applied to the highly selective and very rigorous Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art And Performing Arts. “My audition was in person,” she reports, ”and I was invited back for a callback and to prepare a solo. My dance teacher Yvette Williams who also majored in dance at LaGuardia helpedI me prepare a ballet variation solo.” Daeyana was admitted to the school. She was able to live at home with her mom with a 20-minute subway commute each way.
At LaGuardia, Daeyana took classes in ballet and “lots of pointe classes” after school. The school’s “traditional” modern course started out with Martha Graham technique in the first year, introduced José Limón in the second and Lester Horton in the third year, continuing to explore and refine all these techniques through the senior year. Daeyana also took jazz and tap. There was a full schedule of academic classes as well and a good deal of performing during the last two years. “By the end of my senior year,” as she says, “I retired from ballet mostly for sake of how my body was feeling as I was growing up. The mental and physical self is very demanding as a ballet dancer and I wanted to choose a route that was more healthy for me.”
After graduation from LaGuardia, Daeyana was accepted into the Purchase College, SUNY (State University of New York) Conservatory of Dance. “Purchase has a few concentrations,” she notes: “Performance, ballet, and production concentration. I got my BFA in Performance dance which entailed training in Ballet, Cunningham, Graham, partnering, composition, etc. Of course I had to train in ballet for my technique but it wasn’t my main focus at the time anymore.”
In our conversation, I ask Daeyana what drew her strongly enough to dance to see her through many years of such rigorous training. She replies,” I’m not a very talkative person about emotions. Dancing helps to get them out. And it’s a unique form. Not everyone can do it and stick to it. It’s mentally and physically demanding. I don’t want it to get me.” That challenge is both the good and the hard part of it, she agrees. “I like a challenge.”
While at SUNY Purchase, Daeyana says, “I started studying Doug Varone’s technique ‘DOVA,’ and what appealed me to in his work was how his brain is able to create these intricate patterns in space while including movement, timing and musicality. I haven’t been in a lot of spaces where I was challenged brain-wise and physically.” On finishing university, she applied in 2021 for an apprenticeship with his company, Doug Varone and Dancers—though the perennial question of how to make a living worried her family, her friends and herself. Can you really make a living doing this? Luckily, while in the process of auditioning she was asked to join Doug Varone and dancers. It was intimidating being the youngest dancer of a company some of whose members had taught her in college. But they took her under their collective wing and she thrived under their mentorship.
Three years later, however, she began to feel that she was getting stuck, always dancing in one style, however inspiring. At that point, Daeyana says, “knew nothing about Whim W’Him, but when some who friends were auditioning said, ‘You should too,’ I did.”
Having joined Whim W’Him after a successful audition, “The switch from one choreographer to too many is challenging.” But as she note, she likes a challenge. “Coming from a company where the focus was on one choreographers work it is really refreshing coming to W’him W’him and getting to learn from more than one choreographer. It’s also really nice to have a space to come to everyday versus in New York City you have to rent space in different studios so it’s not consistent as much.”
Moving far away from New York City, where she was “born and raised”— and from her mom (and her dog Leo)—is also a big change. Interestingly, she finds “coming to Seattle is a very peaceful thing. It’s helping me become calm and more in tune with myself.” A huge city is, “overstimulating—here I can breathe—and do things for myself. I don’t have so many family members and friendships that continually need tending to.” Plus, she says with a smile, “I don’t mind the rain.”
And now to Daeyana’s favorites…
Food: “Classic pizza, noodles, Korean BBQ and any kind of Spanish food.”
Beverage: “Coke, all day almost, in my hand.”
Color: “Red and black, but starting to love a forest green.”
Music: “A little R&B, instrumental classic, jazz, pop. I’ve been listening to a lot of Turkish music lately.”
When not dancing?: “I like to read and draw. I love teaching. I was am adjunct professor teaching the Doug Varone method when I graduatioed from SUNY Purchase. I love seeing dancers improve—when I stop dancing I don’t just want to drop dance. And I love to play with my 2-year-old bernedoodle Leo, though he’s not here yet. My mom’s keeping him for this first year.”
