(dramatic energetic music) (dramatic energetic music continues) - My mom says, I've been dancing since before I was born.

When my mother was pregnant with me, she was still teaching dance and performing herself, up until the last minute that she wasn't allowed to dance anymore.

- So we're tapping away and tapping away and she just loved it.

I could feel the energy, the noise, you know, and just doing dance.

- That explains why I'm really good at tap then.

- You're very good at tap.

You're good at all of it, you know?

- [Allegra] My mom was a professional dancer her whole entire life too.

- I went to high school in New York at that "Fame" high school.

♪ Fame ♪ - Got training there and we were just about through with my senior year and there was a notice saying, "Auditions for the ballet company at Radio City, Noon on Monday."

"I can't come to class, I'm gonna audition for the ballet company."

And everybody laughed, "Sure, go ahead."

As it turned out they went, "You'll do.

Thank you very much."

(bright orchestral music) I was at Radio City basically 10 years, four shows a day, seven days a week.

And then you got a week off after about three or four weeks of that.

After Radio City, Crested Butte was my stop, started my own dance school.

(soft airy music) Nothing was the same.

It changed with, number one, my son.

He was a handful.

Two and a half years later.

She was born in the car on the way to the hospital.

- My first memories of dance was the Crested Butte School of Dance, the school created by my mother and her partner, Bobby Reinhart in Crested Butte, Colorado.

- She started teaching professionally at my school when she was 13.

She beat me from the 17, 18 group.

She just did it.

She choreographed, she taught the class, then she started teaching advanced, you know, she taught advanced jazz and tap.

- Yeah, and hip hop.

And belly dancing.

- And the belly dancing.

So, yeah.

(energetic music) - I graduated high school in 2006.

I already was kind of doing my career like, you know, I already knew what I wanted to do for my life and so I thought, well, college isn't really doing much for me at this point, so maybe I'll just do it, do what I wanna do.

And then I did.

So I started teaching it at dance schools around Denver.

I started working at different entertainment companies, doing like stilt walking, backup dancing, doing "Thriller" flash mobs at Union Station, like whatever random entertainment thing, weddings and birthdays and stuff that we did, I just did.

(energetic music continues) And then in 2016, because of the presidential election that happened at the time, I saw so much hate and animosity and aggression and danger towards a lot of marginalized communities that I really align with.

And so I started my own dance company, Dance is Love.

I wanted to transition from just being an an entertainer up on the stage, doing something cute and pretty and fun and sexy and sparkly to inspire and educate people on current situations and actually creating change and seeing progress with an artistic movement, if you will.

- [Narrator] I intend to use my energies constructively as opposed to destructively.

If you can do that about the negative, just think what you can do about the positive.

- [Allegra] My first piece was a Maya Angelou number into like a women's empowerment number into an anti-racism number into a LGBTQ rights ending.

(energetic music) We did Denver PrideFest, which is huge.

There's like 300,000+ people that come over the two days.

At the very end, a guy that runs Denver PrideFest, DeMarcio Slaughter said, - [DeMarcio] I would like you to be my official dance crew moving forward for Denver PrideFest for the next few years.

(crowd cheers) - That was huge.

So we immediately shot from just kind of a concept company into like the official dance company of Denver PrideFest.

The next year, we did a suicide prevention production that actually ended up saving somebody's life in the crowd.

They wrote us a letter after the performance and said how moving and touching it was, what they saw, that they were no longer considering leaving this planet.

And then I told my dancers before we went on stage, "If I only save one person's life with this performance, I'm happy.

That's all I wanted to do."

It was just really attest to art and how lifesaving art can be.

(bright music) ♪ There's nothing is this world ♪ - I myself have been through ups and downs with substance abuse and depression and just being a young, crazy 20-something.

And dance was always the one that was there for me when other people weren't.

- [Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, give it up (indistinct) Dance is love.

(crowd cheers) - So we were on top of the world with Denver PrideFest.

Thank you guys for coming again this year.

(crowd cheers) 2020 happened, COVID happened and, zew, my company was just slashed.

All the arts were just gone.

Nobody knew what was gonna happen.

We didn't know when we were gonna come back.

And then, my brother actually committed suicide in 2020, so, it was (beep).

(somber music) - Her brother, my son, Rob Duvall, he's still in my heart and in her heart.

Directly after that I negotiated with Pi to come and live here.

She left Colorado in, I think, like 2012.

- [Allegra] I left Denver, came all the way across the country to Hampton Roads.

It was really nice to come be with my mother again, to be closer with her.

- [Heidi] I love having her here.

(gentle music) - We were kind of just like floating there, like in the atmosphere, just like hoping things would come back sooner than later, and they didn't.

So yeah, I joined TikTok.

What every sane person did over the pandemic, you know?

We all joined social media of some form to keep ourself entertained.

And I started making Britney Spears TikToks for fun, 'cause I have a lot of her costumes and I know a lot of her choreographies and I've been told I look like her forever.

And I'm a '90s kid, so of course I love her.

I'm a huge fan.

I thought, oh, this is fun.

I like this.

You know, I could just do this to pass the time, until things come back from the pandemic.

And they went viral AF.

They went viral AF.

(rhythmic music) ♪ Hit me, baby, one more time ♪ - They actually took off so much that I performed as Britney all over the country now.

I got my first message one time of a lady in Texas that was like, "Hey, I would like you to perform at my husband's 50th birthday."

I thought, "Really?

Okay.

Okay, I can do that.

Yeah."

And then the next month, a lady in New York contacted me and it kind of snowballed into it being almost every weekend I'm out of town now in a different city.

Boston, New York or Los Angeles, Chicago, you name it.

I've kind of been to almost every major city now.

(energetic music) I found some local LGBTQIA+ establishments and immediately met some of the drag queens that worked there.

And you know, the girls and the gays, they love Britney.

They had me audition right then and there on the spot.

And everyone went crazy.

They went wild.

(giggles) And then I booked my first show here locally.

(upbeat music) A lot of these local areas and queens have been very supportive and helpful in continuing my Britney life out here.

And it's been so much fun.

It's been reinventing the wheel, if you will, of being a professional dancer, entertainer, and still actually using it to help others.

I actually have raised almost $21,000 for No Kid Hungry Through Britney.

(energetic dance music) I wanna do that as long as I can.

But I do really wanna start my dance company again.

I wanna bring back Dance is Love.

Dance is Love 2, if you will.

It can be a Britney Spears production that features Dance is Love, or it could be just Dance is Love, or you know, burlesque performance or Pride Fest performance.

It's such a basic phrase, but it means so much, 'cause like I said, I wanna help people with my art and I feel like dance is very healing and can help anybody and everybody that it touches.

I would love to take Brittany and dance is Love around the world, do a whole tour.

And I wanna bring my mom with me too.

My mom can be my manager slash mother.

(energetic dance music continues) (energetic dance music continues) (energetic dance music continues)