CAMDEN — Camden’s Kea Tesseyman owns and operates Kinetic Energy Alive, at 40 Washington Street in the Knox Mill. Besides her busy schedule and preparing for her own show in May, Kea is pulling double duty by choreographing a number with her own dancers for the Community School’s upcoming Dancing With Local Stars, and working with the school’s students to create a dance number all their own for the show. Kinetic Energy Alive offers old school hip hop and new school hip hop, as Tesseyman likes to say to a variety of students.
 
“My youngest student is eight and my oldest is 68,” said Kea. “Dance has always been part of my life. Dance is a lyrical, continuous infusion of foundations and roots of every dance to tell a story on stage. I’ve developed a system of dance that is simple and requires my students to purely be true to themselves and love who they are.”
 
This is one of the reasons why her style fits so eloquently with the Community School and Opportunity Farm. Kea is in her fourth year of working with the school on the annual show. This year with both locations combining for the show, it is 16 students.
 
“I finally got involved with the students two years ago,” said Kea. “I needed a formula that understood what it took for the kids to be a dancer, but also coming out of their normal lives and all they’re doing to have to perform onstage, too. I don’t think too many people understand what it takes for these kids to do that.”
 
Kea said she lays down the law and then shows them what a dork she really is and it works. They open up and they get it. Does it really help them to have a good time with their experience onstage?
 
“Yes, absolutely,” said Kea. “Because even if they come out of this and say I’m never, ever going to do anything like that again, their love, confidence and courage to get up in front of 800-plus people will have created a memory of all those people looking at them and saying you are special. And that memory will stay with them for the rest of their lives.”
 
For her number in the show, Kea assembled a wonderful group of instructors and dancers from around the area to create their own special dance number.
 
“We started with 17,” said Kea. “Now we have 13 because some had to drop out due to other obligation, but this is some of the most talented dance people on the Midcoast. We all came together to create this piece and that’s how you create community.”

 
A busy schedule
 
At the time of this article, Kea left for California for a nine-school tour in Palm Springs with Dunk the Junk. Dunk the Junk teaches children and families easy ways to cut bad sugars and processed foods from their diets. Founded by Dr. Kevin Strong, the nonprofit uses hip hop, graffiti, and dance to teach kids the simple changes they can make to help fight obesity and achieve better health through proper nutrition.
 
“It’s my second trip to the schools with Dunk the Junk,” said Kea. “It’s hard to tell an obese kid to get up and exercise, but it’s another to ask him to get up and learn some really cool dance moves. I really believe that dance can change the world.”
 
Kinetic Energy’s own dance show is scheduled for May 18 at 7 p.m. and May 19 at 2 p.m. at the Strom Auditorium. The show will present what Kea calls, Power Performance, how dance can change the world. The three parts of the show combine dance and documentaries dedicated to the Maine Photographic Workshops, Youth Prevention and a tribute to the communities comprising Camden and the Midcoast.
 
“Besides being a parent and working with other people’s children there’s nothing in the world greater than dancing," she said. "It’s incredibly humbling to me. By doing something now, if we might be able to change something in the future and be a part of the greater good, it’s just incredibly humbling.”
 

Kinetic Energy Alive, on Facebook.
 
 
The Community Schools at Opportunity Farm and Camden will present their 5th annual Dancing With Local Stars Friday, April 26, 7 p.m., Camden Hills Regional High School's Strom Auditorium, Rockport.