Off-Broadway employs CMU students to teach different dance styles
Students from Central Michigan University don't often take dance classes at the Off-Broadway Performing Arts Studio.
Instead of attending, they teach the classes, Owner John Klak said.
There are six students and two professors from CMU who teach at Off-Broadway. They come with a variety of majors and backgrounds.
Laingsburg junior Hanna Angst taught dance classes at the studio for three years, including pre-ballet, jazz and lyrical. She began because missed going to a dance studio after school.
Both she and Ann Arbor junior Marisa Stafford had dance teaching experience before joining Off-Broadway. They both teach several hours each week. Getting to know the community is one of their favorite parts the job.
Off-Broadway Performing Arts Studio provides the Mount Pleasant community with an uncompetitive space to learn the art of dancing.
The studio, located at 118 S Washington St., has been open for nine years. Klak said the studio offers both dance and fitness classes for different skill levels. The studio also offers fitness classes, which include cardio belly dancing and Zumba classes.
About half of the dance students are aged eight and under, Klak said. Despite the focus on teaching children, the studio can work with any age level.
“Our goal is if someone comes to us and they want to dance, we try to find a way to accommodate their needs,” Klak said.
The studio divides the dance classes into two different categories — technique and non-technique. Technique classes are step-based, with more rigid and choreographed structures, Klak said. The styles in this category include ballet, tap, ballroom and jazz.
Non-technique styles are more free-flowing and creative. They are similar to the dancing found on TV shows like “So You Think You Can Dance,” Klak said. Non-technique dance styles include hip-hop and lyrical.
Stafford teaches freestyle hip-hop classes at Off-Broadway. She said non-technique is a more upbeat dance style. The music is very important because dancers draw their routine from certain elements of a song, she said.
“It’s cool to hear people’s musicality and being able to pick up on different sounds in music,” Stafford said.
The studio offers lyrical classes in intermediate and advanced divisions, with one class for ages 10-13 year olds and one for ages 14 and up. The hip-hop classes range in age groups from 5-6 years old to 14 and up.
Technique classes are not divided by age, but by six different skill levels where each student moves up once they have mastered their current level. Anyone aged five and up can join level one classes, but Klak said the studio does offer “catch-up” classes where older students can move up two levels in an accelerated program.
“If you get a 9-year-old that wants to start ballet, we don’t stick them with the five-year-olds,” Klak said. “They have the coordination that a 5-year-old doesn’t. They can learn far faster and it would be frustrating for them.”
