Today, I took my very first class at Broadway Dance Center. BDC is one of those "household names" for dancers across the country, so it was great to finally come here and take class. The street view of this place just doesn't do it justice... it's one of the nicest dance studios I've been to (definitely nicer than the EDGE or Millenium dance studios in LA). They hold 200+ dance class each week, and there are cool things there like TV screens in the lobby that are hooked to cameras in each of the studios!
There are a lot of things about BDC that make me happy:
1) Their slogan is "Inspiring the World to Dance". So great!
2) They offer classes in every dance style you can imagine: Theater, Contemporary, Latin Jazz, World Jazz, Street Jazz, Popping, Pointe... okay my fingers are tired.
3) They have a ton of teachers, yet they definitely make an effort to frequently bring in guest teachers as well.
4) BDC wins the Smart Business Award for dance studios! For example, they have a free, mandatory Club Card that helps them keep track of students in their system and gives dancers discounts at restaurants, shops, and even chiropractors!
5) It's a "home away from home" for anyone: a theater dancer, a young studio dancer, a beginning adult... sometimes the LA studios feel dominated by the pro dancer community and uncomfortable for newbies. Naturally, this is not so ova here.
Today I took class from Jenn Freeman (guest teacher), and I was tres excited because I saw on her bio that she has a BFA in Dance at NYU's Tisch School (where Gaga went!) and she's danced for awesome peeps like Mia Michaels, Sonya Tayeh, and Travis Wall. The class and combo were great... definitely a focus on slower movement, full-body strength and balance. I really liked how she described the style of the combo as "deliberate" and "reserved"; she wanted us to only use ~60% of our energy. Unfortunately because of my current lack of strength I spent most of the class struggling rather than living. But it's certainly great to just dance and feel sore once again!
BDC, even though I already purchased your popular sweatpants, I shall be back!
-Claire
