It’s common during dance class to find yourself with a little bit of downtime. Whether your dance teacher is working out a section of choreography, changing the music or drilling one-on-one with another student, you might occasionally find yourself in a holding pattern during your class. It’s definitely NOT an invitation for you to stop and do nothing, talk to a neighbor or kick up a ruckus. Nope, no thank you, no way! Instead, make use of every moment and perfect your craft. Here are five things you can do in dance class while you’re waiting for direction from your teacher:Read More
TEAM is for:
Trained
Enriched
Abloom
Motivated
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I have struggled with how to write this blog for weeks, because I’m not sure how to keep my first-world privilege from shining through so brightly. But alas, I am first-world privileged and if you’re reading this, then chances are you are too. Today there is sunshine over my home, safety under my roof and satisfaction in knowing my little family is huddled together. But, let’s be honest. While in pandemic mode, I have yelled at my kids and been unreasonable. I have drunk significantly more cocktails than if we were in normal life. I worked out much less and found myself at the fridge when I’m not even hungry. Sometimes, I have felt despair. I’ve watched too much TV, including Tiger King. I have mindlessly scrolled Facebook and read angry posts about hoarders of toilet paper. These are parts of COVID-19 I hope I soon forget, but I am acutely aware it could be so much worse. Read More
Costume Try-On Week is such an exciting event for dancers! Slipping the costume on for the first time is often the “a-ha” moment when the dancers suddenly understand their teacher’s vision for the performance. This is also the moment where your dancers get pretty excited about their time in the spotlight. Simply put, they feel like stars.Read More
Growing up in dance can look differently from state to state, studio to studio and kid to kid. In the past several years dance has made a comeback in the mainstream spotlight of television and film. While this pop culture reboot has done some great things for our art, it has also given rise to some negative trends for both youth and adults. This is one reason why it is so important to take time to find the best dance school for your family. It didn’t occur to me that parents are actually afraid of their children becoming commodities or exploited through dance until I had a lengthy and honest email conversation with a father concerned about his daughter choosing dance as her passion. Read More
Elevate Dance Center is a “kiss and go” studio. This can be hard for some of our youngest dancers’ parents to understand, but we feel very strongly that our children should be given a learning environment free from spectators. Class time is about exploration, mistake-making and growth. It is not a performance, and therefore needs no audience. Read More
Why dance?
Sometimes it’s hard to put into words the magnitude of what we do when step into the studio. When we dance, we throw a party for our soul. As dance teachers, we know we are changing lives in every class, and we think our parents intuitively know it too when they sign their kids up for dance.Read More
Keston Meyer is a dancer with Ballet Ariel in south Denver. He performs in three shows this weekend on April 27th & 28th in Swan Lake Act III & Mother Goose Fairy Tales at the Lakewood Cultural Center. We caught up with Keston in between dancing, rehearsing and teaching to ask him our top 6 burning questions.Read More
Elevate Dance Center is a tights-wearing dance studio in spite of the fact that it’s become very trendy and “cool” to skip the stockings. The no-tights camp is quick to label the pro-tighters as “old school.” The issue can be such a point of contention, that we once had a parent petition to get Miss Janelle and I fired from Belliston Academy because we did not allow her daughter to dance barefoot and sans-tights at a dance convention like students from other studios were doing. It was our job to enforce the rules of the studio, and we told her she needed to take her classes in dress code. Her mother complained to the owner, Miss Jeannine, and although I don’t remember the exact language she used, it amounted to, “The other kids are doing it, and my daughter should be allowed to look like them if she wants. We pay a lot of money for dance.” Thankfully Miss J backed us up, and told the mother to go ahead and take her pick of those other studios. Phew! Bullet dodged. However, that crazy mommy’s reaction is just a microcosm example of the greater dance world’s hot-button feelings on the tights-or-no-tights issue. I asked our expert EDC instructors to weigh-in, and here’s what they had to say:Read More
After reading the book Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss, I decided to answer his questions for myself. Below are my answers to his final five. How would you respond to these same questions? We’d love to hear your answers!Read More
