Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Do you read our blog?

Leave us a comment to let us know that read our blog? Become a fan or subscribe to our blog..
Secret discounts and sales may appear time to time on our blog for readers only!

Welcome Back


Welcome Back to Dance!

We are starting of the New Year right. Our dressing room area is under construction. We hope to have that finished in the next couple weeks.

Mrs. Megan will be out on pregnancy leave for a few weeks. We welcome substitute teachers Laura Irvine and Megan Harrold to the studio.

We are so excited to have some new instructors, as well as, our existing instructors taking on more classes!

Welcome Ms. Ashley Rogers and 2 new hip hop classes: Wed & Thursday 6:30-7:30 PM

Coming Soon: Mini Maestros for 2-3 year olds.

TUITION POLICY CHANGE: Late Fees are administered after the 5th of each month
COSTUME FEE DUE: January 15th with Recital Commitment form

Monday, December 21, 2009

Christmas Break

TDAC is closed for Christmas Break! Classes start again January 4th.
Have a very Merry Christmas and Wonderful New Year!

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Free Tuition?

We are looking for a few parents interested in bartering services for tuition. Different jobs will barter different amounts of tuition. Some jobs require a knowledge of the skills needed to accomplish the task. Please respond only to jobs you feel you would be able to complete. These jobs are for adults and children shouldn't be volunteered. This work would start over the Holiday break and be continued on weekends until finished. Please email if you have interest in one of the below task and we can discuss more details.


1. Painters.

2. Dry Wall Hangers (Experience)

3. Framers (experience)

4. Applying frost to windows. Looking for someone good with directions, detail oriented and patient.

5. Piano Tuner

6. Piano Mover (someone capable of moving a piano safely)

Food Drive Winners

Congratulations to are 2 Food Drive winners! We appreciate all the food that was donated to the Spring Hill Well.

Winners:

Evans Family
McArthy Family

They will each receive a TDAC T-shirt of their choice!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Added Faculty

Dear Parents and Students,

This letter is to inform you that due to a family related issue Ms. Lynette will be moving back to Miami over the Holidays. I have enclosed her letter to the parents explaining more.

As we are sad to see her go we are very excited to welcome new members of our faculty. All classes will continue on as scheduled. Just a reminder classes start again January 4th.

We have updated the website with faculty bios and head shots. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. Below is a list of Ms. Lynette's classes and the new instructors.

Creative Movement
Monday 9:45 & 10:00, Wednesday 10:00, and Friday 10:00 - Ms. Lindsey Fisher

Creative Movement
Wednesday 4:30 & Saturday 9:00 - Ms. Lori Brown

Combination 2 - Ms. Brooke Mihalek
Combination 1/ Monday 5:30 - Ms. Brooke Mihalek & Ms. Cindy Bellini

Combination 1
Wednesday 5:15 & Thursday 3:00 - Ms. Lori Brown

Teen Ballet- Ms. Lindsey Fisher

Hip Hop- Ms. Ashley Rogers (Hip Hop has switched days and we have added more classes)


Thank You,
Megan White

TNDAC.NET
Tndac.Blogspot.Com
615-302-3348

___________________________________________________________________________


Dear Tennessee Dance Arts Conservatory Faculty, Students, and Families,

I would love to begin this letter by saying that I am so very blessed to have the privilege of working at the Tennessee Dance Art’s Conservatory!!! I truly feel that this dance school is a very special place where lives are being showered and nurtured. I believe this is allowing helping students to blossom into more fully reaching their potential in life not only as a dancer, but as a person divinely created with the ability to create and express who God has made them to be!

The faculty at the Tennessee Dance Arts Conservatory is exceptional! They exemplify extraordinary professionalism and excellent technique in their desire to train, and inspire others in the beauty and discipline of art, and specifically in the art of dance! Dance facilities like this one are rare, and are a true gem amongst the art’s community!

I absolutely love the opportunity of working with each of you week after week! Your children make me smile! They encourage me, and inspire me as a dancer and an artist. I tell my family and friends stories about them and they bring joy to my heart! Your children give me greater glimpses into the divine truths that God is wanting to teach me! For the great privilege of working with the families, students, and faculty of TDAC I am forever grateful! The experience of working at the Tennessee Dance Art’s Conservatory has been a blessing to me in every way!!!

It is for this reason, that it has not been easy for me as I prepare to transition to the next step that I believe God is taking me on in life, and that is to move back to my home town of Miami, FL to be with my family. It is a decision that I have been praying about and have continued to sense God leading me towards. Being in Miami will allow me to be able to spend more time with my grandparents who are getting older. It will allow me to help my family with any needs they may have. It is also an opportunity for me to spend more time with my parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, and extended family most of whom are in the Miami area.

It is not a decision that has come about easily, but rather with much prayer and contemplation. I believe that this is the next step in the journey that God is taking me on, and have sensed His affirmation of that as I have proceeded to move forward with this move.

Although I am certainly going to miss all of you and the privilege of working at TDAC each week, I am absolutely thrilled about the amazing teachers that are coming in to take my place!!! Some of them are personal friends of mine and fellow dance colleagues. I am very much looking forward to the opportunity that your children will have to work with such amazing instructors, and I look forward to being able to come and visit the studio in the coming months when I am in town, and continue to support your children in their training and efforts!

Please know that you will be in my thoughts and prayers and that I am forever grateful for the opportunity to have worked with all of you at the Tennessee Dance Arts Conservatory! If I ever return to the Spring Hill area, I hope that I will have the privilege of working with all of you again!!!





With Much Love and Gratitute,

Lynette Villa de Rey

Lynettederey@gmail.com



www.derey.net



www.actinternational.org

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Ballet Memphis


Pictured: Courtnee Phelps, Rachel Smith, Katie Messina, Emma Moulton, Hannah Evans, Rebecca Campbell, Hailey Evans, Jasea Howell, Abbie Jones.

Students from our Ballet Program drove to Memphis today to see BALLETMEMPHIS perform The Nutcracker. Thank you Mrs. Howell for putting together this wonderful field trip.

Ballet Memphis Blog

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Christmas Parade



Students from last years performance of the Spring Hill Arts Center's School of Dance Nutcracker dusted off their costumes and put them back on for one more night. Along with a few new friends The Tennessee Dance Arts Conservatory braved the cold windy weather to celebrate the magic of the Nutcracker.

The Spring Hill Parade was December 5th 5:00 PM.

In this picture: Hannah Evans, Hailey Evans, Katie Messina. To see more click on the photo for larger image. For more pictures from the parade click here

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Article on Luigi in this months Dance Spirit Magazine



Lauren Kay | December 1, 2009
Dance Spirit Magazine


From Miami to San Diego, it’s not unusual to walk into a new jazz class and still know the beginning of the warm-up: As you lunge onto your right foot and push into your right hip, you stretch up through a lengthened right arm overhead. Then you switch to the other leg and continue to alternate sides in a rhythmic sway that’s both relaxing and invigorating. (See images at left.)


This universal step came from a single source—and his name is Luigi. As one of the fathers of classic jazz dance (along with Jack Cole, Matt Mattox and Gus Giordano, among others), Luigi developed a codified approach to jazz technique, which he describes in his book, Luigi’s Jazz Warmup and Introduction to

Jazz Style and Technique. Now, the sprightly 84-year-old’s unique approach has become the backbone of classic jazz dance. “Luigi’s technique is the finest foundation a jazz dancer can have,” says James Gray, dance captain for the Broadwday production and tour of the musical Young Frankenstein. “Every student should experience his style.”

A native of Steubenville, OH, and one of 11 children, Eugene Louis Faccuito (Luigi’s birth name) began performing with encouragement—and informal lessons—from his brother Tony. Luigi also took tap lessons for three years with Lenora and Angela McKean, and toured as a singer with a performing orchestra in his teens.

A duty tour in the army from 1943 until 1946 interrupted his developing performing career, but upon his return, Luigi moved to Hollywood to study ballet with the famous instructor Madame Bronislava Nijinska. However, he soon realized he wanted a more diverse dance education. So he switched to Falcon Studios, where he began studying with director Edith Jane, as well as Michel Fokine and Eugene Loring, great instructors of the MGM Golden Era.


Then, just months after moving to Hollywood, a terrible car accident put Luigi in a coma. When he woke, one side of his body was partially paralyzed. Doctors worried he would never walk again. But Luigi remembers, “Something inside me kept saying, ‘Never stop moving.’ All I could think about was getting back to dance.”

During the three months Luigi spent in his hospital bed, he practiced a set of angular port de bras created by Micho Ito, a eurythmic dancer. Luigi adjusted the placement of Ito’s arm movements (which were originally designed as exercises for musical conductors), putting them farther in front of his body, as in ballet, to create stability. From there, the nexus of Luigi’s own technique emerged. Now, if you take Luigi’s technique class in NYC (which he and his assistant Francis Roach still teach daily at Studio Maestro), you’ll learn the 24 arm motions Luigi created and dubbed L’urythmics.

One year after his accident, Luigi made it back into the studio, where he developed other exercises that helped his post-injury body. “As I tried to dance again, I fell a lot in the center,” Luigi says. “I decided I had to do the same thing away from the barre that I did at the barre.” He began by putting his arms in second position, palms facing the floor, to stabilize himself—as if he were pressing down on an invisible barre. He also incorporated épaulement from his ballet classes. “Épaulement helps you shift from one position to the next, and puts you in the right spot for each transition,” Luigi explains. Karin Baker, a Luigi devotee and Broadway veteran who danced in the original cast of 42nd Street, finds that Luigi’s use of épaulement “teaches you to connect A to B. He helps you understand how movement flows from one place to the next.”

Thanks to his unique rehabilitative exercises, Luigi was soon back onstage. After performing in a Falcon Studio showcase, he was snatched up by MGM scouts and began dancing in movies. (Catch him in classic films like An American in Paris, Annie Get Your Gun and White Christmas.) On set, he met his mentor, the legendary Gene Kelly. Kelly renamed the dancer Luigi (“He told me there were too many Genes!”), and encouraged Luigi to be proud despite residual physical issues. “Originally I hid my face on set because it was still a bit paralyzed,” Luigi says. “Gene told me, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing but lift your face. It’s beautiful.’ That helped create the carriage I stress in my technique now. It’s like you’re leaning your face up to feel and see everything you can.”

When Kelly’s assistant, Alex Romero, asked Luigi to assist with and perform in Broadway’s Happy Hunting, Luigi jumped at the chance. During the show’s run, he took another of Kelly’s suggestions and showed his technique to dancers in NYC. A loyal student following quickly emerged. Soon, he opened his own studio. It was a success from the start, with stars like Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli filling his classes. Because his technique allowed each student to align his or her body individually, classes attracted actors and singers learning to dance, along with avid dance veterans. “I opened around the time that West Side Story first came to Broadway, and suddenly performers had to act, sing and dance all at once,” Luigi says. “There were no separate choruses anymore.”

Since then, Luigi has dedicated himself to teaching. “I want to help students work on each movement and moment fully. Then they can execute the steps correctly and not lose the ‘moving’ part of dance,” he explains. “I want to help dancers achieve that combination of feelings—desire, elegance and sophistication.”

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Sugar Plum at Longview Recreation Center






This morning students from TDAC put on an 1.5 workshop for students ages 3-8 years old. This event included meeting the cast of Nutcracker, hearing the story, learning dances from the nutcracker, craft and snack. It was a fun morning!