Why CS?
You have so many studios to choose from when selecting a fine arts education for your child. Why CS?
We care. We are a team of individuals who love to teach, love kids, love the arts, and love each other. We all have diverse experiences that have brought us together. All of our instructors have certifications, bachelors and masters degrees, and/or professional experience. We teach because we know the industry, and continue to educate and grow ourselves. When we aren't teaching or creating, we want to be together. We are roommates. We are best friends. We are living life together. CenterStage is truly a family. This type of community permeates our classrooms and affects the culture of our studio.
We make sure your student is learning in a superior facility. All of our studios are equipped with mirrors, barres, high ceilings, and sprung floors to protect knees and joints. We also have a stage and auditorium where we house majority of our productions.
We ensure your child is learning the correct technique, for their age and ability, every year. We use the Cecchetti, Al Gilbert, and Dance Masters curriculums for all of our classes. This syllabi gives our students mappable goals to achieve year-to-year to develop as strong technical dancers. We also have small class sizes based on our rooms and ages of our students. This way, everyone gets the instructor's attention, teachers have control of their classroom, and students are in a space where they can dance.
All of our classes are at minimum, 45 minutes long, with most class offerings being an hour. It is not practical for a class to run under 45 minutes, stretching the body alone can take 15 - 20 minutes! Our class structure starts with a warm up or barre work for 15 - 20 minutes, we transition into technical work across or center floor for 15 - 20 minutes, and then work the last 15 - 20 minutes on choreography or a combination. During recital season, the entire class time may be dedicated to choreography, but during the fall we focus solely on technique and mastery. We strive to produce dancers who understand how to activate their bodies, are strong technically, and can produce quality work outside of just their recital dance.
We learn so we can perform. We offer multiple performance opportunities throughout the year so that your student can put what they've learned into practice. Performances and recitals are the culmination of a year of training in the classroom. It is a crucial part of their study. This is where they learn how to respond to the pressures of an audience, how to solve problems, and "make it work." Plus... it's fun!
A letter from a CenterStage student:
At CS we are always told that we are family, and even as cliche as that sounds, it’s true. We are family. We are a bunch of human beings living alongside each other doing what we love and supporting one another. But that’s not all. We all don’t always get along. We have our drama, we have our stupid arguments, we have hurt relationships. But what really does make us family, in all of this chaos, is that we still love each other no matter what, and we want the best for each other. We are there for each other when one man is down, when someone falls sick or gets injured. We make it work and we support them until they are back on their feet. We make sure they have everything they need to do their best, so we can also do our best, and come together as one unit to create a masterpiece. But as brothers and sisters in a family we can’t do it alone. We need help. We are young and immature and sometimes can’t handle the pressure on our own. But that’s when our other family members step in. Our second parents, aunts and uncles. They keep the peace between us. They make the solution to our problems. They teach us to do everything in our power to make something right, and when we still don’t succeed, to ask for help. They take care of us and love us individually. We make mistakes, we do and say dumb things, and they make sure we see it and correct it so we can grow and become mature and capable people. And even though they are not perfect either, they show us how to live by owning up to their mistakes. They make them right, just like they have told us to do. They teach us to learn all we can, to never stop learning, because there is always something new to be learned or something that can be done better. However, even then we are loved for who we are, for our mistakes and for what we do succeed in. We celebrate together whether one man did something “better” then the next, we all know we worked hard and made something beautiful. We could not have done any of it without the help of our family, our brothers and sisters, parents, aunts and uncles. CS is Family." - Anna Chapman, CS student
At CS we are always told that we are family, and even as cliche as that sounds, it’s true. We are family. We are a bunch of human beings living alongside each other doing what we love and supporting one another. But that’s not all. We all don’t always get along. We have our drama, we have our stupid arguments, we have hurt relationships. But what really does make us family, in all of this chaos, is that we still love each other no matter what, and we want the best for each other. We are there for each other when one man is down, when someone falls sick or gets injured. We make it work and we support them until they are back on their feet. We make sure they have everything they need to do their best, so we can also do our best, and come together as one unit to create a masterpiece. But as brothers and sisters in a family we can’t do it alone. We need help. We are young and immature and sometimes can’t handle the pressure on our own. But that’s when our other family members step in. Our second parents, aunts and uncles. They keep the peace between us. They make the solution to our problems. They teach us to do everything in our power to make something right, and when we still don’t succeed, to ask for help. They take care of us and love us individually. We make mistakes, we do and say dumb things, and they make sure we see it and correct it so we can grow and become mature and capable people. And even though they are not perfect either, they show us how to live by owning up to their mistakes. They make them right, just like they have told us to do. They teach us to learn all we can, to never stop learning, because there is always something new to be learned or something that can be done better. However, even then we are loved for who we are, for our mistakes and for what we do succeed in. We celebrate together whether one man did something “better” then the next, we all know we worked hard and made something beautiful. We could not have done any of it without the help of our family, our brothers and sisters, parents, aunts and uncles. CS is Family." - Anna Chapman, CS student
