Motion Arts Dance Studios

This conditioning class provides the more serious dancer with a cross-training experience that supports her work in technique classes.

An extension of our Jazz program, Jumps and Turns allows dancers to dive more deeply into their center and traveling work. This class focuses on strength, control, and stamina, asking the dancer to display more dynamic and technically advanced steps.

Jazz classes are centered around upbeat, fast-paced movement! The Jazz dancer will learn about isolations, leaps and turns, weight shifts, and more advanced rhythmic structures such as triplets. Students will be asked to demonstrate both subtle and bold movement, encouraging a sense of artistry and performative expression. Our Jazz program also focuses on muscular strength and development, so conditioning exercises will be a part of each class.

Contemporary further expands concepts from modern dance and asks dancers to push past the boundaries of their foundational technique. Improvisational tasks and partnering phrases encourage students to explore their capabilties and creative expression, gaining a better understanding of their voice as individual movers and discovering how various dance techniques evolve and inform each other.

Modern builds upon foundational ballet technique, but expands into bigger, freer movement phrases. Dancers will discover twists and spirals in the spine, the importance of the head-tail connection, inversions, and floorwork. Our modern program is centered in Limon, Graham, and Horton technique, but students will be exposed to a broad range of styles within the modern framework.

Creative Movement classes serve as an introduction to modern dance. Students focus on the three elements of dance: space, time, and energy. Through guided improvisational activities, students will develop their individual movement styles and will be given the opportunity to choreograph their own dance phrases as they gain the tools to view dance through a more artistic lens.

Ballet provides essential foundational technique to our dancers. Students will work at the barre, in center, and across the floor to develop muscular strength, hone their fundamental technique, and gain an appreciation for classical artistry. With a huge focus on anatomical awareness, our ballet teachers guide their students towards an empowering knowledge of their body. Dancers may opt to pursue further ballet studies in our Pointe track, beginning in Pre-Pointe, and, after passing their evaluation, progressing from Intro to Advanced Pointe. Our goal in our ballet program is not perfection, but rather progression.

Pre-Dance is for our youngest dancers, ages 2.5-3. This class allows students to explore their creativity with a combination of basic ballet technique and imaginative play. The focus is on body part recognition, spatial awareness, and development of gross motor skills. Small class sizes allow dancers to benefit from direct attention from their instructor. All Pre-Dance classes are taught by the Artistic Director, Alexa Astarita, who has specific training in working with the very young dancer.