About two weeks ago, Vineyard-based dancer Alise Haigazian got a text message from her mentor, former Island dance instructor Kelly Peters, asking if she was interested in dancing backup for Toni Braxton at Boston’s TD Garden on Feb. 15.
The ‘90s R&B songstress was seeking local dancers to support her hit song “He Wasn’t Man Enough” at the Boston stop of her tour with Boyz II Men and New Edition. The performance was that Sunday, meaning Ms. Haigazian would have mere days to prepare before taking the stage before thousands of fans.
But for the seasoned professional dancer and creative director at Island Hip Hop, that kind of thing is business as usual.
“It was a sold-out show … and the energy was electric,” she said. “I remember thinking, what’s stage fright?”
Alise Haigazian is the creative director at Island Hip Hop.
— Ray Ewing
Ms. Haigazian spoke with the Gazette by phone last week to discuss the recent performance and her long career as a dancer and creative, on and off-Island.
To make it in the dance world, she said one must be poised at all times to accept exciting opportunities.
“Things will be provided to you if you’re open to it and are focused,” she said.
In the days leading up to the concert, she learned her choreography from a video sent to her by Ms. Braxton’s dance captain. Once Ms. Haigazian got to the Garden on Sunday, she and the other dancers had just four minutes to block the routine before going onstage.
That day, she also received her costume: a silver halter top and skirt layered with silver sequins and fringe.
“It felt like something Tina Turner would probably wear,” she said.
Before she knew it, she was backstage, watching Boyz II Men be lowered through the stage floor to make way for Ms. Braxton and the dance crew.
Ms. Haigazian said all the performance’s moving parts coalesced into a sparkling, well-oiled machine, manned by performers and about 75 crew members flanking the stage.
Dancing for Ms. Braxton, she said, was a blast.
“It felt very quick, as anything that’s fun does, but it was amazing,” she said. “Everyone was on point, and that’s always a really good feeling when you’re performing.”
Ms. Haigazian’s dance journey didn’t begin on a sequin-studded stage, but on the Vineyard, where she was born and raised.
“I’m an Island girl,” she said.
She started dancing with Mr. Peters when he opened his Vineyard studio in 2001, then followed him to both Boston and New York to assist him at his studios.
While living in New York in her 20s, she taught at multiple elite schools and studios and performed at prestigious venues like Jacob’s Pillow in Becket, Mass. and on Good Day New York. She also appeared in music videos for the likes of Drake, Jim Jones and Kid Cudi.
She reflected on her whirlwind early career as being “super fun.”
“This was pre-social media, pre-all of that,” she said. “So it’s funny to look back and not have as much footage of all of the things that I’ve done.”
In 2015, she moved back to the Island to start Island Hip Hop, now in its eleventh year. In a space rented from Kaleidoscope Studio in Vineyard Haven, Ms. Haigazian mentors her crew of seven dancers in the fundamentals of hip hop’s history and artistry.
“Hip hop is much more than just a genre of music. There’s an entire culture behind it,” she said.
As Island Hip Hop’s creative director and choreographer, she’s responsible for the vision and execution behind all of the group’s projects, from videos to live performances. In October, the group took the stage at Ladyfest, the Oak Bluffs music and performing arts festival centered on women and nonbinary performers.
But essential to the magic is the team of dancers she’s mentored over the past decade. Now in their teens and twenties, Ms. Haigazian’s dancers have been under her tutelage since they were young children.
“I’ve seen them through boyfriends and breakups and deaths and births,” she said. “I call them my kids.”
Even in the thick of the pandemic, her dancers would dutifully appear on Zoom for regular rehearsals to learn Ms. Haigazian’s choreography.
“I couldn’t really believe that they still wanted to dance with me after all these years via Zoom, but they wanted to, and they’re still dancing with me today,” she said.
For her, teaching Island kids the joys of dance — and bringing those joys to the wider Island community — is a way to give back.
“Dance shaped who I am tremendously, especially as a kid on the Vineyard [where] it’s really easy to get in trouble,” she said.
Whether she’s with her team in front of an intimate Island crowd or dancing for thousands in a glittering arena, one thing is certain: Ms. Haigazian is at home on a stage.
“Honestly, it felt like riding a bike,” she said of her TD Garden performance. “A really shiny, sequin-covered bike.”
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