When the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet dissolved its local performance company in March, the prospects for contemporary ballet dancers in Aspen didn’t look great.

They could leave town and try to pursue dance somewhere else, or they could retire from dancing and stay here.

Neither option seemed very appealing.

So, they came up with their own solution, founding a new nonprofit called Dance Aspen in the middle of a pandemic that had cast a dark cloud over the world of performing arts.

DanceAspen celebrates its one-year anniversary with a selection of three performances, collectively named “New Horizons.”

“I called this ‘New Horizons’ because we’re really looking forward,” said DanceAspen executive director Laurel Winton. “It’s an articulation of the development of this organization as a whole. We’ve only been around for a year, but it’s been like speed development. We’ve gotten quite far, and we keep looking ahead.”

If you had told Laurel Jenny Winton a year ago that DanceAspen would sell out its inaugural show, perform at the international Vail Dance Festival, put on its first fundraising gala and create multiple premiere works, the dance company’s founder said she would’ve never believed it.

The press release came to my inbox with the headline: “Two ski town rivals come together through dance,” which nailed the truth of the Vail Dance Festival: It’s all about collaboration. Any “rivalry” between the two towns is completely set aside as dancers create together, learn and inspire each other to take dance to its highest level.

In just one short year, DanceAspen has succeeded in creating a full-time, local dance company in Aspen, thanks to the vision and determination of its founder and executive director Laurel Winton and the entire team of dedicated and talented performers.

Nascent powerhouse DanceAspen is set for multiple performances at the world-renowned Vail Dance Festival this summer.

Aspen Santa Fe Ballet’s touring company carried the mantle for contemporary Colorado dance for more than two decades, and carried it far, headquartering itself in its two namesake cities but touring across the country where its skilled troupe and innovative movement won wide acclaim.

When the pandemic shut down and ultimately ended Aspen Santa Fe Ballet’s 25-year run, the dancers in the company were not only stranded without jobs in Aspen, Colorado (where the company was headquartered), they were left without dance.

DanceAspen’s performance at the Aspen Art Museum last week was unconventional. Instead of performing prepared choreography to a set piece of music, the performers improvised — with the help of the audience. Tap the audio to go behind the scenes of a collaboration between DanceAspen and Juilliard.

Recently founded by Laurel Winton, DanceAspen is a thriving resident dance company that continues to grow and their vision of building a year-round, high-caliber, local dance company in the Roaring Fork Valley is fast becoming a reality. In less than a year, they have set the bar high to deliver quality programming and continue to push the envelope with more to come.

When the new ballet company DanceAspen staged its first performances at the Wheeler Opera House in September, they were greeted by enthusiastic sold-out audiences. When they staged an open rehearsal on the rooftop of the Aspen Art Museum in January, it drew a standing-room-only crowd.

A group of performers from the shuttered Aspen Santa Fe Ballet company have founded the new contemporary company DanceAspen and will debut new work at the Wheeler Opera House next month.

When the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet announced in March that the organization would be dissolving its dance company after a quarter-century run, it wasn’t just the community at large that suffered. The dancers themselves — already having been without opportunity to perform in a year — were left without many options.

Some moved. Others took whatever jobs were available. Most missed dance.