Minnesota dance instructor is teaching students of all abilities at St. Paul studio

Julia Davidson arrived at her happy place — the dance studio — a long time ago.

"It's a place where I can feel at home in my body and where I feel like whatever I'm experiencing and whatever I am expressing is allowed to come up," she said. 

Davidson was seven years old when she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

"To my parents' credit, they always asked me, even at a young age, do you still want to do this?" Davidson said.  "The question mark for them and for me wasn't, do I dance? It was, how do I continue to dance? And so we developed a good relationship with a teacher at my studio and we kind of made a game plan given what we knew about diabetes 26 plus years ago."

Davidson studied dance in in college and grad school, learning ballet, modern and the art of improvisation. 

Now the learner is a teacher at Young Dance in St. Paul. 

"I would describe it as a home, and I would just describe it as a third space, so one of those places where people gather and feel like they belong and feel they belong in community," she said.

For 40 years, Young Dance has welcomed dancers who are babies to dancers who are elders, as well as dancers of all abilities.

Davidson, and Young Dance invite everyone to feel the rhythm.  

"I wish more people said I have a body. Therefore, I can dance," she said. "It's like the feeling, not the look, not the esthetic, but the feeling you get of freedom in your body when you are making choices. Of how to move, and you are expressing something that maybe you don't have the words for. It's electric."

Young Dance is hosting its family-friendly Fall Fling Saturday at its studio in St. Paul. It's free from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. They also host classes for all ages and all abilities.