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Dance Book: Codename: Dancer
Amanda Brice, Author
Thanks so much for having me here today! I’m very excited to speak with dancers about my new YA book, Codename: Dancer.
I’ve been dancing pretty much my entire life. My mom enrolled me in a ballet/tap combo class at age 3 because she noticed I would jump around and spin whenever the Coke commercial came on. From that point on, I was hooked!
As a preteen and teen, I was in my dance studio’s company, and was dancing around 30 hours per week. Then in college, in addition to double majoring in Political Science and French, I studied flamenco, ballet, and ballroom. My junior year I auditioned for the ballroom dance team, and spent the next two years competing against other schools up and down the East Coast. It was a lot of fun!
I decided to write Codename: Dancer because it was the type of book I would have loved growing up. There were tons of fiction books about dancers for little girls, but not much for teens. There still isn’t, really, except for books about the ballets and choreographers. In other words, non-fiction.
So I decided to do something about that. I’ve always loved mystery novels, so why not write a mystery series about a group of dance students at a performing arts boarding school? And thus, Codename: Dancer was born.
Of course, I’ve never solved a mystery, nor did I go to a boarding school, so I still had a lot to learn. But I’d started reading Nancy Drew books in elementary school, and always used to win at Clue, so how hard could it be?
It actually ended up being a lot more difficult than I expected, but readers tell me they don’t figure out whodunit until right at the end, so hopefully I met my mark!
I hope you’ll enjoy my book. Here’s a little bit about it:
“Aspiring ballerina Dani Spevak is thrilled when hit TV show Teen Celebrity Dance Off comes to the campus of her performing arts boarding school. She trades the barre for the ballroom and gets set to cha-cha-cha to stardom with Hollywood wonderboy Nick Galliano.
At first their partnership is awkward, because Dani is in awe of her longtime teen idol crush. But soon their chemistry is heating up the dance floor and the attraction moves into real life.
Her excitement is short-lived, because someone wants her off the show. Bombs, poisoning, arson… Will Dani’s 15 minutes of fame be over before she reaches age 15? Dani and her friends are suddenly at the center of some serious sabotage. And if she doesn’t find out who is behind it, her next pirouette could be her last.
It’s like Nancy Drew in toe shoes in this light-hearted tween mystery, a finalist for Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart® Award for Best Young Adult Romance.”
You can learn more at www.amandabrice.net.
Would you like to win a copy of the e-book? If so, just leave me a comment and tell me what your favorite dance book or dance movie is. I can’t wait to hear from you!
Dancers Unite Fine Arts Academy LLC
Elizabeth Emery
Your Name/Title: Elizabeth Emery/Owner
Studio Name: Dancers Unite Fine Arts Academy LLC
Years in business: 2
Your studio’s philosophy: First and foremost, we want to make sure our dancers are learning the right way to do things. We want top quality instructors who teach our dancers correct terminology and body placement so that if they want to become professional dancers they have the proper tools to do so.
Secondly, we want it to be a postive environment. We want it to be a safe place to try things. We want to encourage our dancers to try difficult steps in an encouraging way. We are a family owned and operated studio, and we want all our customers to feel they are part of the Dancers Unite family.
Thirdly, we want them to have learned skills that would help our students in any aspect of life. For example, learning how to try new things if you fail, learning how to perform in front of large groups of people and learning how to accept criticism are all wonderful skills that can be used in any career choice.
Dance styles taught: Ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical, hip hop, tumbling, pointe, contemporary, musical theater dance, bellydance, zumba
Approximate # of classes per week: 40
Approximate # of teachers: 7
Biggest struggle in getting off the ground and how you handled it: Getting the word out about our studio. A lot of people choose a dance studio based on what their friends & neighbors recommend, and as a new studio it’s going to take awhile for your studio with the best word of mouth. You just have to be patient, not give up and work hard at building good relationships with your customers.
Also, try to get your name out in the community by working with local schools. For instance, my dance studio teamed up with a well respected private school in the area to host a dance camp out of their facilties.
Best advice you can give someone who is opening (or thinking about opening) a dance studio: Save up as much money as possible before opening a studio. I opened a studio with my sister and we worked hard in high school to get full scholarships for college and then lived at home with our parents and shared a car. Opening up a dance studio takes a lot of capital and there are expenses that you probably wouldn’t even think about before opening a studio!
One mistake you think potential dance studio owners make: Bending over backwards too much! People don’t appreciate it, and often the ones you bend over backwards for still aren’t happy and leave your studio anyway. Make sure you don’t spend so much time trying to please the hard to please that you forget about your supportive base of customers!
Specific tip for having a smooth recital: We had a checklist of every possible thing we would need for our recital going into it, and that really helped make sure we didn’t forget anything.
Best marketing move you’ve ever made: Having a really great website that my sister runs herself so it is constantly updated. We also constantly work our social networking. We’ve found most of our customers have found us through the internet.
Most rewarding moment: Walking through the lobby during intermission of our recital and seeing all the pleased parents. It was so nice seeing so many proud, happy parents and knowing that I had helped make a wonderful, memorable afternoon for them.
BIO: Elizabeth Emery began dance at the age of three, and started teaching dance at the age of thirteen. She taught dance throughout middle school, high school and college. She danced competitively since age seven and her routines won numerous overall awards. A personal favorite dance performance of hers was Disney World, a favorite vacation spot of her family. In addition to teaching and dancing at her studio, she was a member of the Charlotte Catholic Dance Team for four years. She was the only freshman on a team that placed first runner up in a national competition..
She graduated Charlotte Catholic with honors, and her dance and academic achievements helped her receive the Thomas Cooper Scholarship to the University of South Carolina. She then graduated cum laude from the nationally ranked Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina with a bachelor of science in business administration. She double majored in business economics and marketing, and minored in sociology where she took such courses as Childhood Sociology.
Elizabeth’s combined loves of business, dance and working with children has made owning a studio a natural dream of hers. Elizabeth strives to provide children with self-esteem, but at the same time provide them with a good dance background. Elizabeth continues her dance education today, and has taken numerous classes up and down the east coast, most recently at Broadway Dance Center in New York City, the Boston Ballet School, the Dance Complex, and the Jeannette Neill Dance Studio in Boston. She has taught hip hop and jazz for the after-school program for the Mecklenburg Area Catholic Schools (St. Patrick Catholic School, St. Ann Catholic School, St. Gabriel Catholic School, St. Matthew Catholic School, and St. Mark Catholic School) and the Summer Dance Camp at Charlotte Latin School
Dance Jobs: Part-Time Adjunct Faculty At Belmont University, Nashville, TN
Belmont University is looking for some adjunct instructors to join their faculty. These are part-time positions in the theater department, and the school is searching pecifically for teachers that have expertise in Dance Technique including Tap, Ballet, Jazz and Modern, Dance Composition, Dance History, and/or Dance Kinesiology. The university is located in Nashville, Tennessee, and the positions will remain open until they are filled, and those hired can expect to teach up to nine credit hours a semester, depending on what is needed.
Featured Studio: Conservatory Ballet, Reston VA
Name: Conservatory Ballet
Location: 2254-L Hunter Woods Village Center, Reston, Virginia 20191
About: Conservatory Ballet was created in 1972 and Julia Cziller Redick serves as the Artistic Director. The school combines Vaganova style training with a Montessori approach for a unique blend of teaching styles. There are over 160 classes designed specifically for all kinds of age groups, beginning at 18 months, all the way to adult. In addition to ballet there are also Irish, Flamenco, Jazz, Hip Hop and Tap classes at the studio. A detailed list of the curriculum classes can be found on the Website as well.
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