By Elizabeth Cummings

Ballet was nothing more than a fun and productive hobby to keep 4-year-old Jennifer Lin occupied.

Little did she know she would be in six major dance productions, performing on the stage of the Moore Theatre and the Paramount Theatre, choreographing, teaching and inspiring kids of all ages. For only being 23 now, Lin has crossed major aspirations off her list.

At the tender of age only 5 months, Lin was adopted from Korea, and began life with her new family in Kenmore. Dance was merely an activity for her, but at the age of 12, she became serious about her dancing career. She learned about Dance This, a company that “brings together cultural expression” with authenticity and passion in younger kids and teens, and decided to pursue further involvement.

Lin was one of the first dancers who performed with Dance This. The first year, she did not really understand what it was, but “when the show actually happened, and being on the Moore Theatre (stage) all came together, I thought, ‘Wow! This is amazing.’ To be part of it, I jumped at it,” she said.

Jamel Gaines, director of Creative Outlet in Brooklyn, NY, hand-picked Lin to be part of his dance this year at the Moore Theatre. She was brought back as an alumni dancer. “That was pretty cool,” she said.

Her most challenging dance so far was the one Gaines choreographed: “His style of movement is different from anything you find here in Seattle; we get the opportunity to have a choreographer to stretch our boundaries,” she said.

“Working with Gaines,” she added, “was terrifying and wonderful at the same time. He demands so much from you. All the dancers compared bruises the first week. I’ve come out of the show three weeks after with huge changes in my body. I’m a better dancer because of that process.”

Lin says people must be in good physical shape when they go into a dance, noting, “It comes with (the) territory.”

Before every performance, the dancers gather in a circle, hold hands and give pep talks to one another. Dance This affects the lives of their dancers physically and mentally; it gave Lin an experience to challenge herself.

“It made a strong impression on me about how to be a professional, mostly as a dancer, and as a person. I think the respect it gave for the process, for the dancers and the people backstage, is for everyone to have the opportunity to perform on the Paramount stage,” she said.

Lin also knows what it is like to work backstage; she was a project coordinator backstage one year during a Dance This performance.

Dance is just one of many things Lin excels in. Acting — since she was 8 years old — has always stood second place to dance. At the age of 12, she was cast as a camp girl in the classic movie “The Parent Trap,” and she spent a year in the mountains of California filming with Lindsay Lohan. Even though they cut the 20 minutes of film she was in, it was a great experience.

Starring in an Alpha Bits cereal ad was her favorite commercial to film. She remembers changing a roller coaster into cereal bowls, and riding a roller coaster for three days of filming.

Lin credits part of her dancing to playing the piano for five years. “As a dancer, one of the very first things you learn is how to count the music,” she said.

She practiced one to two hours a day, three to five days a week, learning different styles of music to help with her dancing.

“My mom and my sister are sort of my necessity,” Lin says of her mother driving her to dance classes, and her sister waiting for her.

Married three months ago, Lin — who lived in Kenmore for 20 years — is enjoying married life with her husband in Kirkland. Grad school is planned for this upcoming fall at the University of Washington.

When she is not dancing or acting, she is reading. Although she likes science-fiction books, lately she has been reading her “dense and academic” grad-school material. One of the things Lin and her husband shared an interest in before their marriage was cooking; now they continue to cook for each other and love to watch the Food Channel.

For the past five years, Lin has been teaching dance in various studios around Seattle. She hopes that, after grad school, she can return to Dance This and would love to choreograph.

When asked how she wanted to inspire people from her dancing she said, “A good dance takes into account the audience. It tries to challenge them or stimulate in some way.”

Even though she loves performing, she admits her strength is teaching and choreographing. “Respect is a huge part with dance,” she said. “It goes hand in hand with discipline. It’s really important, and I want to pass that on.”