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A Time Tu Danse

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The studios offer a hugely varied curriculum of classes and opportunities for people of all ages and skill levels: ballroom dancing, ballet, street, hip hop, baby boogie classes, tap dancing, and contemporary dance are just a few of the disciplines catered for at Tu Danse. But there’s more innovative ideas too, like the kid’s Popstar Parties and First Wedding Dance classes which Anita dreamed up to keep the studios busy around the clock. ‘Because of the whole Pop Idol and X Factor thing, I thought it would be nice to offer parties for kids where they get treated as a pop star for a couple of hours, so they get dressed up and actually get to record a CD with us’ she explains. ‘ The First Wedding Dance class is very popular too. It started five years ago and we’ve taught about 48 couples since then. I think, partly due to shows like Strictly, people realise that instead of just standing and shuffling from foot-to-foot during their first dance at their wedding, they want to learn to dance properly so we choreograph a dance to whichever song they choose and make it really personal. Some songs are quite straightforward to choreograph but we’ve had some very weird and wonderful choices over the last five years!’

Despite the multitude of choice on offer, there are still some classes that Anita would like to offer but, as yet, feels unable to. ‘It’s more off-the-wall things that we struggle with – things like Bhangra and Bollywood, the more ethnic styles of dance. Or very specific things like the Argentine Tango. But these are all specialist dances and unless you can find specialist teachers it wouldn’t be authentic. Sadly, we’re not very lucky in this area when it comes to having those kind of teachers around.’

The biggest sector of Anita’s business are classes for children. Her youngest pupil is just 18-months old, so is it a prerequisite that, in order to become a professional dancer, you have to almost start dancing before you can walk? ‘No, you don’t necessarily have to start really young’ Anita says ‘but, particularly with ballet, it tends to be more the mum’s dream rather than the child’s. Lots of mums want their kids to do ballet so the biggest part of our business is with the under-sevens. But a lot of those children do stay with us so we do invest a lot of time and effort into our youngsters. Things start to spread out a bit as they get older – some teenagers drift off as they develop other interests, but many of them eventually come back in their own time.

A Time Tu Danse 1 2 3 4

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