The cast of last year’s Dancing with the Stars event. The 2023 stars will be revealed on May 25.
By Danyelle Leentjes | Seeds of Learning
It is time to pick out your Pagosa finest dress threads, dust off the bling and mark your calendar to attend the star-studded event of the summer, the sixth annual Dancing with the Pagosa Stars. On Aug. 19, local Pagosa celebrities will slip into their costumes and dance their hearts out, competing to raise critically needed funds for Seeds of Learning.
These generous celebrities are all people that are recognized as leaders in our community. They will partner with professional coaches from Pagosa and Durango to present a dazzling night of dancing and fun. You will be able to buy tickets to support your favorite dancers and vote as many times as you want, with each vote costing $1. The celebrity raising the most money from ticket sales and voting will get bragging rights and take home the coveted Mirror Ball Trophy at the end of the night.
The identities of the chosen celebrities are under wraps until the big reveal on May 25, when voting for your favorite stars will be officially open. You are not going to believe who we have dancing this year. For the most up-to-date news on the event, follow Dancing with the Pagosa Stars Facebook at facebook.com/Dancingstarspagosa/ or visit our website, growingseeds.org, where tickets for this much anticipated event will go on sale July 13 at 9 a.m.
The Tim Sullivan Band will be performing again this year during the popular open-dance portion of the evening. We are thrilled to announce that Jason Cox and Joe Jordan will be our emcees for this year’s event. Both gentlemen are no strangers to this popular event. Joe’s wife, Chantelle, was a star dancer last year and Jason was a star dancer in 2019.
We are also extremely grateful to welcome back our amazing director and choreographer who is working hard to make this night special. Leslie Carlson has organized the Dancing with the Pagosa Stars since it began six years ago in addition to the successful Dancing with the Durango Stars for several years. Carlson has been a professional dance instructor for over 20 years. She was formally trained under the tutelage of world-renowned dance and choreography professionals at Arthur Murray Dance Studios. Carlson is versed in teaching a large variety of diverse social dance styles, from dramatic Latin dance variations to swing, waltz and ballroom, country western and more.
This month, 30 children will graduate from Seeds and attend kindergarten in the fall, where history tells us they will excel among their peers based on test scores. And many of those children’s families have been able to attend Seeds because of donations received at this event. Seeds offers a sliding-scale tuition based upon income of each individual family. More than 80 percent of the children at Seeds cannot afford to pay the top tier tuition fee to attend school. The future of at-risk 2 1/2- to 5-year-olds lies in the hands of generous individual donors and local businesses.
More details about this incredible evening will follow. Mark your calendar for Aug, 19 to support your favorite Pagosa celebrity and help educate Pagosa’s most vulnerable preschool children all at the same time.
