Community Update

If you are looking to be a part of an elite dance team, this is the studio for you! If your child wants to take a few classes and enhance his/her dance skills, I suggest looking elsewhere. My daughter was with this studio for 3 years, taking 2 classes plus a part of Rhinestones or Crystals (the young competition groups) all 3 years. Each year, the studio found new ways to increase their revenue. The first year that we were there, part of the recital fee was a few tickets to the recitals. The next year, they reduced the recital fee by $25 and charged $20 per ticket ($15 for the Concert.) This year, for my family to attend all 5 recitals, it would have cost $425 in addition to the $375 in recital fees.

Recital dress rehearsals were on Father’s Day weekend for my daughter were 13 hours, 8 of which were 12-8 on Father’s Day and she was only in 3 classes. Some kids were there longer. Recitals were held on WEEKDAYS. Some kids had to leave school early. Parents were told that if they wanted to attend, they had to take off from work. That makes it doubly expensive.

Classes that had typically been combined into the same recital were split into separate shows. For instance, if you had ballet and tap on the same night, in the same classroom, one after another, those were always in the same recital so that parents would only have to buy tickets to one recital and sit through one show instead of 2. That was not the case this year and it was blamed on the harsh winter.

Choreography is recycled year after year. This year there were TWO repeat dances in which my daughter performed just 2 short years ago in almost identical costumes. The lyrical dance performed annually by the Rhinestones group is the same dance every year, just to a different song.

Many weeks, her instructor for Crystals was out of town with the ensemble dance team and she was left with senior students from the studio teaching her class that week.

I hope that the studio returns to the days of encouraging the love of dance and not just winning at competitions.