WARRENTON — Summer Dance Lab is holding its annual audition for prospective students on Saturday, Jan. 16 at Maddox Dance Studio, located at 389 S. Main Ave.

Summer Dance Lab is a five-week intensive dance class hosted at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington for pre-professional dance students. It focuses on ballet, modern and American theater dance styles. Select merit scholarships are available by audition only.

Ages 12 to 21 will audition from 10 to 11:15 a.m. Ages 10 to 12 will audition from 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., with registration 30 minutes prior to each audition. The cost of the audition is $30; make checks payable to Summer Dance Lab.

Guest teacher for this audition will be Summer Dance Lab faculty member Jason Hartley. Originally from Des Moines, Iowa, Hartley began as a gymnast and a music lover. He received formal training in ballet and modern dance from the North Carolina School of the Arts. In his 18 years as a professional dancer, Hartley has danced leading roles with numerous companies including The Washington Ballet, Trey McIntyre Project, Ballet Met Columbus, and CityDance Ensemble.

In 1995 Hartley received the level 1 award from the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, in 1996 he received the Princess Grace Award for dance, and he is the first recipient of the Chris Hellman Award. Hartley has over 14 years experience as a teacher for such companies as Colorado Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Trey McIntyre Project, Harvard Ballet Company and Ballet Memphis. In 2002, Hartley received a grant from the Kennedy Center to choreograph for the Millennium Stage. He has choreographed original works for the Washington Ballet, Dance Theater of Pennsylvania, Balance Dance Company, ARKA Ballet, and in Idaho Shakespeare Festival’s, “The Winters Tale.” Hartley has also performed his work for the Youth American Grand Prix and Dancers Responding to AIDS galas.

At Summer Dance Lab, students may attend for two, three or five weeks during the summer. Students attending for the full five weeks of the program may audition for the Apprentice Program, which entitles selected dancers the opportunity to work with professional choreographers and dance in a final public, professional performance in association with affiliate Walla Walla Dance Festival. Likely companies to be included in this year’s festival are Smuin Ballet from San Francisco, John Passafiume from New York City, and a number of outstanding guests artists such as Benjamin Grigffiths from Pacific Northwest Ballet.

Directors John Passafiume and Lydia Tetzlaff have molded Summer Dance Lab to enable students to maximize their individual potential, and to that end employ a faculty of teaching professionals that encompass all dance styles featured in today’s dance world. Summer Dance Lab immerses its students in the language of dance with a rigorous pre-professional schedule, imparting valuable information that is translated into the body and taken back to students’ home studios or into professional auditions.

For more information, email sdl@whitman.edu, or go to www.whitman.edu/summer_dance. Or contact Jeanne Peterson at Maddox Dance Studio by calling 503-861-1971 or by emailing maddoxdancers@opusnet.com