Random Thoughts During Office Hours

REGISTRATION!!! It's been haunting me for weeks...I keep thinking about how to get the word out, how to encourage people to sign up, etc. I find myself alternately elated and on tenterhooks with anticipation for how this semester will go.

I had two people register today, and fielded several phone calls. It's very exciting to sign a new student up for class! As I see my class lists start to fill, I get more and more excited about the first full year of teaching and working for myself. It seems monumental.

It's very interesting to see which classes are filling and which are not (yet!). When I made my schedule, I had no framework for what would work, and so it was anyone's guess what classes would fill. We'll see how this fall pans out!

Mostly, though, I'm thinking about classes starting, and all the new students I'll be teaching, and I am just very excited about seeing everything I've been working towards coming together!

Publicity

I am off to hang posters today advertising fall classes. This is the third round of poster hanging I've done for the studio: the first was for the open house, and was wildly successful, the second was for sumemr camps, and now the beginning of the school year. I have to admit I'm a little burned out on poster hanging.

One of the issues is that Greene County's business are all spread out, so it takes a lot of driving and in/out of the car to accomplish the task, where in another area I could park and walk in a few locations. Another is that it takes a big chunk of time that I would rather spend choreographing or putting the finishing touches on the studio or being at the farm. Also, if I take my kids they get over being in the car pretty quick, but if I don't take them then I miss out on hanging out with them.

From talking to other studio owners, they feel like visibilty and word-of-mouth are the number one things that build a student base. Most say posters and flyers are the way to go. And everyone says that newspaper advertising isn't worth the cost (which is pretty pricey) for the number of students who respond. But I would like another method besides hanging posters myself to get the word out.

As a consumer, what attracts you to a small business? Are there any advertising techniques that you've seen that have absolutely sucked you in? Do you think it's a matter of one really great method, or just constant visibility (like branding)? Tell me your thoughts!

Two Week Countdown! (and major update)

Hi world! It's been way too long since I posted here, but summer has had me swamped! Although we didn't fill every single class, I taught summer camp classes every day in July, and man, was I tired by the end. It was a good warm-up for fall, though, since we have a 20-class schedule to offer! Classes start September 3rd, which is only TWO WEEKS AWAY!!! I can't believe it!

This is a photo from ballet camp, taken in mid-July. It's hard to get lots of photos and also teach!

Registration is going on now, and I will be in the studio this week and next, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 3-7pm. I will also be there Saturday the 30th from 9-3. Anyone who wants a registration packet mailed to them should either call or e-mail with their name and address and I will send it right away.

Last week, we had a booth at the Greene County Fair. I love the fair, and look forward to it every year (on a side note, my butter cake has won a blue ribbon two years in a row!). Having the booth was a lot of work though. We were there every night for 6 or 7 hours! I loved having the opportunity to talk to people about the studio. Lots of people had already heard of us, but some hadn't, and everyone was enthusiastic about us being here, and wishing us luck.

One of the projects I'm most excited about for fall is our December production of The Nutcracker. For those of you unfamiliar with this holiday classic, The Nutcracker is a ballet about a little girl who recieves a gift of a toy nutcracker doll at a party. After the party, she falls asleep with her doll and dreams a fantastic dream, including a fight between toy mice and toy soldiers and her nutcracker doll becoming a prince and taking her to the Land of Sweets where the Suagr Plum Fairy and all her friends perform for them. We will be producing a shortened version of the ballet this year. Auditions for placement (everyone will be cast) are being held September 13th!

And of course, our Social Dance Night is held every Thursday night from 7-10 pm! This month Tom is teaching waltz and cha cha, and next month we continue the waltz and starting salsa! This drop-in class requires no registration and costs $15 per person.

So as the dance school year approaches, I will try to be more regular about posting. If you live in the area, stop by and see the studio! We've worked hard on it and are so excited about the coming year!

Three Things!

Hello world! Have you missed me? I have three fabulous things to share with you...sadly, no picture today, but I am running on less than three hours of sleep and have been up since 5 am, so you must forgive me for forgetting my camera.

Last week was our first week of Summer Dance Camps! We ran the Creative Dance Camp and the Exploring Dance Camp for ages 8 and up. Both went very well. I am always amazed at the creativity of the three and four year olds when they are given the chance to dance however they like. Next week we will run another Creative Dance Camp, and a Ballet Camp, which I am thinking of combining for all ages.

Today was the first day of our Hip Hop Workshop series. Both classes had five students, and Matt Steffanina taught a great class. Matt is a fantastic dancer and a dynamic teacher, and he really worked those students! The next workshop will be July 26th. I wasn't able to take his class today, but I am definitely taking it next time!

Lastly, I think I have finalized the fall schedule. It took so much finagling, and I may still have to make changes, but I have a schedule that I think will be really good for our first year! It's crazy, though, because even though I know I can make changes if I have to, it feels like once I tell everyone when classes are that I need to stick to it. And making a schedule with no idea of which classes will work best in which times is a tad nerve wracking! Ah, the excitement of the first year of being in business!

So those are my three things, and I'm sure I will have more as the summer progresses. Stay tuned! Pictures to follow as soon as I get my act together!

Choreography

Last week was our second Homeschool Dance Camp, Creating Dances. The students had an opportunity to learn choreography techniques and then make up a dance of their own. Although I directed this camp, all the ideas that went into the dance, and all the choreographic decisions were theirs.

The name of the show was "All's Well That Ends Like a Fairy Tale." The Queen and her Princesses are having a ball with their fairy friends:


They all dance together:


Suddenly, the Queen and Princesses fall ill, and the fairies have to make a potion to try to make them better:


Luckily, the magic potion (made of a flower, a fern, and fairy magic) heals the royal family, and all join together in celebration:


This is a picture of the students after our little showcase on the last day:


We invited the homeschooling community and had a few other families besides those involved in the camp directly. The girls had a great time, and I loved watching the artistic decisions they made.

I am offering another choreography camp in August for all students ages 8 and up, and I have two signed up already, so I imagine it will run. I can't wait to see what the next group will create. Watching students choreograph for the first time is always inspiring to me, because everything is so fresh and exciting. It reminds me of when I would make up dances as a kid, and how much I loved it.

End of the Year

This photo is of my oldest daughter (the short one without the pink face) backstage at her first dance recital. She was the littlest butterfly in a production of Little Red Riding Hood that a local ballet studio put on. I had signed her up for ballet knowing we were opening The Dance Barn because I wanted her to have a chance to take dance from someone else before she started taking from me. Ironically, I wound up teaching her class for the other studio the entire second semester.

Anyhow, the production was excellent, and it really got me thinking about how I want to structure the end of year performance next year. It will be our first one, of course, and so it will set the stage (so to speak) for future productions. Do I want to do a standard recital where each class does a different dance and they are unrelated in theme? Do I want to create some sort of story show (a well-known fairy tale, for instance) where the more advanced students have lead roles and the younger classes are, say, forest animals? Do I have the students pay for their own costumes that I order and then keep them, or front the cost of costuming myself, make them, and then keep them for future productions?

While I certainly have ideas about what I don't want to do, narrowing down what I DO want will be more challenging. I want to create a recital that gives the students plenty of performing time but isn't boring for the adults to sit through. I want to make dances that are interesting for people to watch.

I'm glad I have a year to plan this thing!

Social Dance Night (and an apology)

Our Social Dance Night has been an outstanding success so far. We've had 15 or 16 people both nights and word is just beginning to spread. We are so thrilled with this turnout and are looking forward to building the event.

This picture is from our second class, and I have blurred faces (except for Mr T) because I haven't gotten everyone's permission yet. Anyone whose face appears here has given me the go ahead. I believe in this photo they are practicing an underarm turn in rhumba. Remember folks, it's never too late to join us on Thursday nights from 7-10 pm!

And finally, an apology for my slacker posting of late. I was so good for the first month, but we have been terribly busy (good stuff!) and it's easy to go to sleep at night instead of posting more photos of our amazing studio. But I will attempt to be more regular about posting again.

Stay tuned!

Dance Camp

The theme of this week's dance camp is "Exploring Dance." While this one is a homeschooling camp, we will be running it again as a summer camp in July. Each day, the students get a brief history lesson in a particular style of dance, and then take a class in that style. So far we've done ballet, jazz, and modern. These photos are from the jazz class.


Tomorrow we do tap, and Friday is ballroom, which Mr T and I will teach together. It's been a blast planning this camp, and the kids seem to be having a good time. I will be interested to ask them at the end which styles they liked best and why. I am finding that music and speed make more of an impression than actual dance steps. So something upbeat to music they like is more fun even if the steps aren't exciting. But a fabulous combination to music they don't like doesn't hold their attention.


Just look at those faces! I couldn't ask for more enthusiastic students!

The First Week

Totally unrelated photo again of my two older daughters, who begged me to take a series of them in dance poses "for the studio." This would be arabesque.

The first week of being open went really well, I think. Classes were fun, and we are still taking registrations so we may pick up a few new students this week. But the unexpectedly exciting day of the week was Thursday, when 16 people showed up to our Social Dance Night! (I promise to post photos soon, but they are on my sister's camera.) Mr T is such a great teacher (I hadn't watched him teach a group class in six years, and he's really come into his own as an instructor) and everyone who came said they enjoyed it and would come back. Several people said they had friends who were interested as well!

This week I am running a Homeschool Dance Camp. I didn't think I had enough students to run both age groups, so I combined them, but then I think I picked up a fe new students today, and so we may have eight in that class. I just went over the curriculum, and I am quite excited to teach this week. The students will get a class in a different style of dance each day, starting with a brief history and some photos to give them a fuller vision of the style. We're doing ballet, jazz, modern, tap, and ballroom, in that order. A dance sampler, if you will. I think it's going to be a blast.

First Day of Classes!

Yesterday was it! Our first official day of classes at The Dance Barn! It was bustling and busy the whole night, and all the classes went well, I think, although it's been a while since I taught five classes in a row. This is the 3-4 year old creative dance class:

And this is the 5-7 year old creative dance class doing "bear walks:"

I didn't get a picture of the ballet class, which is sad because I wanted to show the barres I made, but here are the jazz dancers:

Every time I cross a new milestone in the process, I think, This is really going to happen! It's very exciting and I just hope things continue to grow. Wish us luck!