Sam Stableford is a thirteen-year-old student at Carbondale Middle School. He’s also a hip-hop dancer; Stableford first started copying Michael Jackson’s dance moves he saw on TV as a two-year-old, and hasn’t stopped dancing since. This spring, he was asked to teach a hip-hop class for elementary school aged kids with Dance Initiative. The class met weekly at The Launchpad in Carbondale, and culminated in a performance at the park at 4th and Main in downtown late last month.
Stableford said he stopped dancing when things shut down due to the pandemic last year. That only lasted a short while, though, and teaching kids has given him a new outlet for his creativity and love for performing.
As part of our series “Young Artists: A Collage of Creative Voices” about how local kids have kept creating during the pandemic, arts and culture reporter Kirsten Dobroth sent this audio postcard from Stableford’s dance class at The Launchpad in Carbondale.
