The Birth

In 2009, Corinn deTorres, Stephanie Seaman-Keith, Cara Defillippis, and Lauren Ferns were all dancing together in a musical version of Top Gun called Hot Gun. Their friend Mike Midlo asked them to choreograph a short 20 minute set to open for his band, Pancake Breakfast’s album release show at the Doug Fir. As they began to plan for this show, they thought, well, we may as well create a dance company! And thus TriptheDark was born.

History

After the Doug Fir show, Corinn and Steph maintained the Co-Creative Director roles for TriptheDark and started planning for the future. Since 2009, TriptheDark has created one big show each year, plus have been involved in so many smaller projects with other artists, it would be impossible to name them all. Some of those projects included the Free Body Project, a dance project bringing awareness to human trafficking, StageWorks, Ink collaborations such as Xana-Redu, David Saffert’s birthday shows at Curious Comedy, album release shows, Groovin Greenhouse with Polaris, a commercial with Street Roots, and a multi-discipline artist collaboration at the Secret Society. 

The annual shows follow familiar stories and themes such as fairy tales, TV shows (Twin Peaks, House of Cards), and movies (Dirty Dancing, Labyrinth). We have worked with many dancers and choreographers over the years and have a solid recurring group of company members who are always somehow involved. 

Classes

Steph has always offered adult tap classes (with the exception of the COVID years). From time to time we offer other workshops and company classes, as well. We are all also available for hire to teach! 

TriptheDark’s New Leadership

After 13 years of Co-Directing the company, Corinn deTorres stepped down in 2022 as Creative Director to make room for some new ideas, creativity, and direction for the company. Anna Sass and Taylor McDougall replaced Corinn’s role and now work collaboratively with Steph to lead the company.