Dancers Who Have Shared Stages With the Royal Ballet Perform Tuesday at Villa Parke

Robin Olive founded Straight Up Abilities Dance Company in Los Angeles in 2016 on a premise she has stated bluntly in interviews: people do not know what her students are capable of, and they do not expect much. The organization’s résumé is the rebuttal. Its dancers have performed at SoFi Stadium, at Disney World, at the Special Olympics World Games and at the Royal Opera House in London — and shared a stage with the Royal Ballet at the Music Center in 2019.

On Tuesday at 4 p.m., that company brings a showcase to the Villa Parke Community Center auditorium in Pasadena, marking Disability Pride Month with a program of dancers of all abilities.

Straight Up Abilities, known as SUPA, is a nonprofit performing arts organization teaching roughly 485 students weekly across 20 in-person classes in Southern California, Las Vegas and New York, with virtual instruction available nationwide. Its Pasadena classes run Saturdays. The organization offers dance, music, theater and career coaching, and describes its purpose not as recreation but as professional training — students train, perform and build careers.

The teaching roster reflects that. Instructors include an American Sign Language educator with a master’s degree from Gallaudet University who fuses signed poetry with dance, and a choreographer and aerialist with more than two decades of international performance work.

Villa Parke’s auditorium, a large room with a full stage, sits inside a community center that also houses a branch library, a preschool and a gymnasium. The showcase is open to all ages.

The Straight Up Abilities dance showcase will be held Tuesday, July 28 at 4 p.m. at the Villa Parke Community Center Auditorium, 363 E. Villa St. in Pasadena. For more information, call (626) 744-6530 or visit straightupabilities.com. All ages.