It seems like only a few months since I started Commonwealth Dance Academy. Yet this is the academy's fortieth season. The years have been filled with memorable moments, watching dancers develop from their first tentative steps on the dance floor to grow into  confident performers on the stage. When I first started Commonwealth Dance Academy, the dance world didn't offer hip-hop, lyrical, improv, theater arts or contemporary dance in their classrooms; just ballet, tap, jazz, and modern. In the last 40 years the dance world has changed quite a bit, and as the dance scene changed, Commonwealth Dance always adapted to offer the best training in each subject. Over these 40 years Commonwealth Dance Academy has been my home and a second home to my faculty and most of the students in the academy. We have always prided ourselves on developing well-rounded, accomplished, educated dancers, but we are most proud to pass on the love of dance. So many of our students feel that no matter what challenges they face during the day, their cares melt away when they step into the dance studio and get lost in the art we care so much about.
Forty years years of arabesques and pliés, leaps over the puddle, shuffle-steps, jazz squares, buns, sequins, tutus and tiaras, laughter, memories. . .
Yes, forty years of sharing my love of dance with eager students. How lucky am I! - Bettijane Grey-Robinson, Director |
