What We Have Been Up To

Wow it has been a while! Seems like right after the Holidays we had no time to do anything except prepare for the Recital. Sadly, no down time to post, twitter, or update our Network. However, free time seems to be more available due to the fact that pieces are choreographed and costumes are being delivered. We can breath a sigh of relief. For example, just last night I completed all 4 routines for my 10-12 year olds. Ballet, Tap, Jazz and Hip Hop... check!

Hence this post, letting you all know we are still alive and our PRS (pre recital stress) did not get the best of us this year. You would think after 17 years there would be zero stress... well... NO. You see, that is part of it, in some strange way the show would not be half as fun without the challenges.

I will not bore you with the details of the tasks we have completed or the road bumps we have encountered. Lets just say that things are great, and we are looking forward to getting back to spreading our love of owning a studio and dance with you all very soon.

I leave you with one minor detail that I am super excited about. Because of my love for Lady Gaga, I have talked my mother into using a remix of "Just Dance" for the Finale. YAY!!

Catch up with you all soon.
Peace, Love, & Dance!!
Miss Leslea

Holiday Happenings

Health and Wellness Seminar with Ms. United States 2008 Graziella Baratta
For Teens and Adults
When: Tuesday December 16th, 2008
Where: Uptown Dance
Time: 7-8pm
Cost: Free
RSVP by December 9th, 2008

Master Class “Precision/Dance Team Style” with Rockette Autumn Morgenstern
For Ages 13 and Up
When: Saturday December 20th, 2008
Where: Uptown Dance
Time: 3:30-5pm
Cost: $20
RSVP by December 13th, 2008

Holiday Party
The last week of classes before Holiday Break, December 18th-December 23rd, we will have a Holiday Party for the children during their scheduled dance class. Its our present to them, lots of fun dancing and goodies.

Holiday Break
December 24th-January 5th. Rest up and Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones.

Holiday Gifts

Perfect Holiday Gifts for your young dancer. Tinkerbell’s Dance Studio DVDs. Miss Leslea is the host for the Jazz and Hip Hop instructional videos.

Happy Holidays!!!
Peace, Love, Dance!

The Reason Behind NJ Dancers

I created a Social Network for Dance in August and in just 3 short months I have gained over 50 members. This may not seem like many to most, but I am very proud of the progress we have made. Some of you may wonder my reason for starting my Network, so here it goes...

On my main page my mission statement reads...

Welcome to my Network! Thank you for your support in my effort to create a positive, motivating, non competitive place for us to interact and share our love for dance. My goal is to be well known as a encouraging support system to our Dance community, and best of all, its Free! Help me in my effort and ask others who love dance in NJ to join too. Get yourself a badge or send them and invite. Questions, comments, suggestions are always welcome. I look forward to hearing from you all. Peace, Love, Dance!

As a young dancer I can remember my dance environment being extremely competitive. For instance; among other local dance schools, at competition(of course), auditions, and even among the girls in my own class. When my mother and I opened our studio, one of our main goals was to change that competitive attitude between dancers. We should unite, not be bitter towards each other. We all love dance, why not share our knowledge and motivate each other. We instill this positive behavior in all our students and accept nothing less. We also do not compete our dancers, we chose to teach our students to appreciate dance as an outlet and art form, nothing more. I wanted a companion to the mentality we have within our studio and to share our teachings with hopes that it will become contagious, hence NJ Dancers.

I recently opened up the Network to those who may not live in NJ, but who promote dance over the Internet. You can't really localize what they do, so we have adopted them into our NJ Dance Community. For example; dance bloggers, dance apparel, dance instructional sites, dance forums, etc. I feel this will be very useful to our members because not everyone has the time to search for all the valuable dance info out there on web. That's where I come in, providing resources at your fingertips on Dance NJ. You can find these awesome people under "featured members." I will also alternately display one of these members weekly on the main page so you can't miss what they are offering us.

I would love for you to stop by and visit NJ Dancers. I also love comments, suggestions, and questions.
As always, Peace, Love, Dance!!

The Power of the Net

You have all heard me mention before that this was Uptown's year to use the Internet to our advantage. It was long over due, using the power of the Net for advertising and networking. Our adventure started this past summer before our new season began. A very close friend of mine, Graziella Baratta, opened me up to the power of the Net. Sure the studio and I had Myspace accounts, but how about all of the other opportunities out there that are not as "popular". She informed me of Twitter, which has opened up many other doors and has motivated me explore. She also encouraged me to get an official website which was pretty easy since she was my web designer. She is very talented and creative, together we came up with a well received Site that many students and parents are enjoying. Here we are about 4 months later and I want to share with you some of my experiences.

Twitter: Short and Sweet. Follow people with similar interest. Attach links and info, meet and connect with people. So far I've met some awesome dance bloggers, one in which inspired me to start my own (Thanks Nichelle of Dance Advantage.) I've also been introduced to dance communities and sites through Twitter which I will make note of below.

Ning: Similar to Myspace or Facebook but a little more specific. My Ning Network is for Dance in NJ. My goal is to be well known as a encouraging support system to our Dance community, and best of all, its Free! I'm making a big effort to create a positive, motivating, non competitive place for us to interact and share our love for dance. I will talk more in detail about my mission behind this in my next post.
*Two other Ning Network for Dance: Dance New York and Dance Advantage Interactive

Helping Hands, My circle of Info.
Below I will list my dance discoveries thus far in my effort to make full use of the Net.

GenDance: "The NEW weekly e-newsletter and trend-zine for the NEXT GENERATION of dance." Dance Trends, News and Media. I found GenDance at the UDMA Costume Preview Show.

DanceHere: "You’ll find the best news, advice, reviews, and resources from within the world of dance." I found Dance Here on Twitter.

Dance Teacher Web: “Proven tips, tools and tactics to gain, train and retain better students!” Videos and articles for dance teachers and studio owners. You must become a member to access the info on this site. I found Dance Teacher Web at the UDMA Costume Preview show, we won a free month =)

DanceStudioOwner.com:"A collaborative online community and resource that is full of information on everything you need to know to attract more students, retain top talent, inspire loyal faculty and staff and love the business of dance." I found DSO in a Magazine where they were offering a FREE ebook and Tip of the Week Newsletter. You have limited access to the website for free and must join for full access. I became a member and highly recommend the site. Some time after I also found DSO on Twitter.

Dancer Universe: Everything dance wrapped up into one site. Uptown Dance is listed with this site under Dancer Lessons. I found Dancer Universe through their magazine.

Merchant Circle: A well know place to promote any business. You can join the 620,000 businesses across the country who rely on Merchant Circle to manage their online reviews. Best of all, it's FREE!

Dance Plug: "The ultimate Dance Network featuring Online Dance Classes." I found Dance Plug through Nichelle of Dance Advantage.

Dance Jam: Another Network for Dancers. Create a profile, upload and vote on videos. Imagine a Myspace/Facebook combined with YouTube, but just for Dancers. I found DJ on Twitter.

I hope you all find this information useful. Maybe you will find opportunity just like I did. I am very much enjoying the benefits and hope you find something that interests you in the post as well. Questions and comments are always welcome. If you know of any sites, networks, blogs, etc. please share.

Peace, Love, Dance!
Miss Leslea

UDMA Costume Preview Show

My mother and I attended this years UDMA Costume Preview Show in Seacaucus NJ. I felt the need to write a post about the very enjoyable time we had. Believe it or not, we had never attended a UDMA show together. I attended when I was younger as a model, and my mother use to attend with the owner of the school she worked at prior to owning her own.

The show is held in the Meadowlands Exposition Center. It is very organized with the booths lined up in aisles. You simply walk up and down and stop where you like. At check in you are given a badge to wear and tote to put your catalogs and merchandise in. For those who do not know, this is a free event for studio owners and teachers. There is even seminars and a fashion show you may attend at additional cost.


We enjoyed most the booths which had items for sale. I bought a "dance teacher" tank from Tia's Dancewear, silver dance sneakers from Stars Dancewear, and car magnet from All About Dance that says "Give Peace a Dance."


My mom won a free month from Dance Teacher Web through their scratch off game. We will be very interested in checking out their site. We were pleasantly surprised to see several games available for us to play. For example, we got to spin a wheel at Starpower Competition's booth and both won pocket mirrors.


We didn't spend much time at the costume booths because after 16 Recitals we have done business with almost all of the companies. We have narrowed down our ordering to 2 companies which we are very happy about. The only catalogs/companies that were new to us were UFO (hip hop dance pants) and Bodywrappers. We made sure we put ourselves on their mailing list and left confidently that we now get all of the great costume and dancewear catalogs to our studio.


I highly recommend The Costume Preview show to new studio owners. Its the perfect opportunity to get catalogs and put your studio on mailing lists. You also get to feel the quality and see the costumes on a model. Costumes, Dancewear, Competitions, Workshops, Conventions and more, all in one place.


For established studios its a great opportunity to check out new vendors and make sure you receive every catalog so you have a choice when selecting costumes. Its also a nice opportunity to bond with the teachers in your studio, you can make a day of it with lunch after or breakfast prior. That's exactly what we did after.



We very much look forward to next years show. For more information you can visit http://www.udma.org/. You can also join their mailing list if you are a teacher, school owner, or coach.

Dance Diary Entries

At the end of the month I ask students to submit an entry from their Dance Diary. As a reward for sharing I post the entry on the Blog and give them an honorable mention. For more information please see the post titled "Dance Diary."

Two very lovely and talented students from my 10-12 year old workshop class decided to share the following...

Dear Dance Diary,
First, to start off, I love dance!! I love to learn new things every week. I love my teachers. They are both so nice! In ballet, my favorite thing to do is a tor jete. In tap, my favorite thing to do is a back to broadway. In jazz, my favorite thing to do is a single spin. Another thing I love are the barr stretches. I guess that's all I have to say.
By: Natalia

Hello and welcome to my dance diary. I love to dance. I've been dancing since I was three. My favorite song that we danced to was Calabria. It was for jazz. But I like hip-hop the most. It is fun to just hang loose and do whatever you think is right. My favorite song is Janet Jackson's Feedback. I like the way she dances and how she doesn't stay stiff. Every Monday we do something different. The best step to me is back to broadway. There are other ones like buffalo, maxie fords, and I like when you run and jump into mood position. I love the way Miss Alyssa and Mrs. Leslea dance. They are not afraid to do anything. The girls in my class are great too! I will dance until I'm like 30! Well I hope you like my diary. Have a great day!
By: Adrianna

I very much enjoyed reading my students perspective on dance class. I am very thankful that their experiences are positive. My hope is that they continue to use the Dance Diary along their journey with dance.
Keep Dancing Readers!
Love,
Miss Leslea

Keeping Attendance, Motivation and Interests Up

Rewards for Young Dancers

At the end of class for a job well done, thanks to DanceStudioOwner.com, we are offering Ballet coloring pages. This will give the little ones something to look forward to receiving each week. When finished coloring they will have pages they can proudly display and learn from at home or in our Studio.

Perfect Attendance

For Ages 10 and up I offer recognition for them not missing class with a group photo in this post and on the NJ Dancer Network. (http://uptowndancenj.ning.com/) At this age they understand the importance of class attendance and they also tend not to feel "left out" if they are not included in the photo for a missed class. It is understood as a reward and a reason to keep their attendance up. The younger ones would be more likely not to understand my intentions and would most likely look at me very sad as if to say, "why am i not in the photo?" Also, not all parents want their younger children displayed on the Internet. For these reasons I keep the "Reward" for ages 10 and up.

Here they are...

Monday Workshop

Monday Hip Hop

Tuesday Hip Hop

Wednesday WorkshopPointe Thursday Hip Hop

Thursday Workshop

Thank You to all my dedicated Students!! Keep up the good work!