Our Styles of Dance Classes
A Time To Dance offers a wide variety of dance styles with levels to fit
each student's personal progress and confidence in dance.
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Dancers are placed in classes according to experience, age, and achievement in each style to optimize growth. We also offer classes for those with different abilities and special needs. These classes take each student's special needs into consideration in regards to the class curriculum and pace.
Acrobatics
Acrobatics teaches strength, flexibility, and proper body placement in its moves. Movements are done with control and dance connector steps to create fluid routines demonstrating the dancer's power and flexibility.
Ballet
Ballet is both a graceful yet powerful style of dance originating in Europe centuries ago. The classical style of ballet uses its own vocabulary and specific movement technique to teach dancers incredible strength, beautiful long lines, and flowing and connected movements to express feelings and even long stories through ballets. Ballet is a foundation for several other styles of dance and used by many athletes in their training. Ballet dancers may work toward joining Pre-Company and ATTD Junior Company as they progress!
Contemporary
This dance style explores the qualities of released and grounded dancing while daring students to find contrasting qualities of stillness and explosion. There is a focus on floor work and combined elements of ballet and modern with use of acrobatics and hip hop and sometimes lyrical and jazz.
Pre-requisite: Level 3 and up in 2+ of: ballet, lyrical, modern, acrobatics, jazz, or hip hop
Hip Hop
Hip Hop is a style born from the hip hop culture of the 1970s and 80s. It uses lots of energy, rhythm, and hits to create seemingly effortless steps to a variety of rhythmic based music. Breakdancing and popping and locking are some examples of movement styles within hip hop.
Irish Dance
Irish Step dance is a traditional style of folk dance originating from Ireland. It involves rhythmic and precise movements of the lower body while maintaining a straight and still upper body. Dancers all begin in soft shoes, or ghillies, and then move into additionally using hard shoes as technique progresses. Irish dancers may work toward joining Eternity Irish Dance Troupe or Junior Troupe as they progress!
Jazz
Set to jazz music or music with a good beat, jazz uses every part of the dancer to pronounce musicality and nuances. Movements require control, agility, endurance, and lots of personality.
Jumps, Leaps, and Turns (JLT)
Enhance your overall technique in performing sound and consistent jumps, leaps, and turns. This class is the perfect compliment to the study of ballet, jazz, lyrical, contemporary, or musical theater. It includes stretching and strengthening alongside a variety of moves.
Pre-requisite: Level 2 and up
Kickline
The focus of kickline is high kicks!, precision dancing, and big energy. Flexibility, clean movements, sharp timing, and spatial awareness are emphasized in this class. It is a fast-paced and fun class with opportunities for community performance as well!
Pre-requisite: Level 2 and up in any other style
Co-requisite: Members of kickline must also take at least one additional weekly class of their choice.
Lyrical
This is a flowing and expressive blend of ballet and jazz movements done to interpret the lyrics of a song. It conveys a range of emotions and integrates floor work and group work into movements for story-telling.
Pre-requisite: Level 1C with ballet or jazz experience highly recommended
Modern
Modern dance originated as a reaction to ballet technique, demanding something more natural. This intensely expressive style of dance is derived through free and intuitive energy and movement with attention to the the core.
Music & Movement
Concepts of moving to music and interacting with classmates in a dance setting are introduced and established for our youngest dancers in Music & Movement. While we do not allow parents in the room during the class, you are welcome to stay in the waiting area or parking lot to be nearby your tiny dancer.
Musical Theatre
This class teaches and builds upon dance styles commonly used for musical theatre productions such as ballet and jazz and more. A large emphasis is placed on showmanship and acting to create effective and crowd-pleasing production numbers. Please note that vocal instruction is not part of this class. Tap is another commonly used dance style in musical theater and can be taken separately.
Pre-requisite: Level 2 and up in any other style
Recommended Co-requisite: We encourage those pursuing musical theatre to take jazz, ballet, or hip hop alongside this class to further increase their level of skill for use in production.
Pointe
Many ballet dancers transition onto pointe as they progress. Pointe requires appropriate maturity, strength, and control to be safe and successful. It is an exciting time to start pointe and requires fluency in ballet. Pointe students also take a separate weekly ballet class.
Pre-requisite: Instructor evaluation and placement based upon ballet skill level, ballet knowledge, maturity, age, and physical development
Co-requisite: Pointe dancers must also take at least one additional weekly ballet class.
Therapy Classes
Our therapy classes are specially designed to work at a pace for dancers with different abilities and special needs. We offer a dance combo class for younger students age 4-8 which emphasized ballet and jazz type movement. Pre-teen through adult students can choose from Irish/Tap, Ballet/Lyrical, Jazz/Musical Theater, and Hip Hop to learn and perform new skills.
Tap
Tap teaches the percussive art of making rhythmic sounds with your feet -- either to music or a cappella. Jazz technique is sometimes incorporated into tap dancing too!
Performance Groups
Are you interested in joining any of our performance groups? Check out our "Dance Groups" page to learn more about what we are offering this season. These include Encore, Eternity Irish Dance Troupe, Junior Ballet Company, Pre-Company, Kickline, Mix-It-Up, and Ballet Gloriosa.