At Dance Legacy we strive to instill poise, confidence, and a passion for dance in all our students. Dancing is fun and a great way to stay physically active; it also helps to develop coordination and good posture. The confidence our students achieve in dance class helps them as they grow. Our classes help students overcome shyness, become leaders, instead of followers, do well in school learn social skills and make friendships that last a lifetime.
Tap Tap dancing is a fun, challenging form of dance. Dancers wear special shoes equipped with metal taps to create rhythmic patterns and timely beats in time to music. They use their arms and upper bodies to blend other styles of dance like jazz and ballet with tap technique. Tap class begins with a warm-up to stretch the muscles of the legs and feet. Dancers practice a series of basic steps, adding more difficult combinations as they become more proficient. Tap dancing is a vigorous form of dance. It builds aerobic fitness as well as muscle control.
Jazz Jazz is one of the most popular styles of dance, mainly due to its popularity in television, movies, music videos and commercials. Jazz dancing is fun and energetic. It consists of unique moves, diverse footwork, big leaps and quick turns. Jazz technique works on a student’s posture, flexibility, grace and balance. Jazz class begins with a warm-up and leads into a series of stretching exercises and isolation movements across the floor and ends with a combination to different styles of music. Jazz class also includes a short cool down to prevent sore muscles.
Ballet Ballet technique is considered to be the basis of training for all types of dance. Classical Ballet is the art of dance requiring strength, resilience, elegance and grace, all at once. It can be difficult to master and takes lots of patience and practice to learn. Ballet can be studied at any age. Ballet classes help develop strong bodies, improve coordination, and retain flexibility. Many hours will be spent at the barre learning the steps and positions. Correct ballet training is vital for those students that desire to become a professional dancer one day.
Tumbling Tumbling is the technique of flipping, rolling, arm supported directional techniques taught as the student develops strength and control. Tumbling includes a wide range of movements that require discipline, skill, speed and strength. Most people associate tumbling with gymnastic and cheerleading. Common skills taught in tumbling class include, forward rolls, backward rolls, cartwheels, bridge, round-off, handstands, back bend, back walk over, front walk over, and backhand springs. Skills learned in tumbling class include numerous tricks and techniques that require repetition and working in progression to perfect the tumbling skills.
Cheerleading Recreational cheerleading is dedicated to developing cheerleading skills and learning cheer dance. Skills developed in class include: precision, rhythm, timing, jumps, and beginning stunting. Basic tumbling skills are also taught in this class. This is a great class for beginners and for those wanting to become a cheerleader. Hip Hop Hip hop dancing features a lot of self impressions, where the dance comes from the soul. Hip Hop represents body movements that go with the beat and rhythm of hip hop music. There is breaking, popping, locking, and free styling in hip hop dance. The jumps, breaking and rotation in the movements are combined in such a way that the dance style becomes explosive. Hip Hop is a blend of today’s high energy street style movement and club dancing. Hip hop dancing is good exercise and it helps the dancers to improve flexibility, to develop body balance, and coordination.
Lyrical Lyrical dance is a dance style that blends ballet and jazz dance. Lyrical is smoother and a bit faster than ballet, but not quite as fast as jazz. A lyrical dancer uses movement to express strong emotions such as love, joy and anger. Music used for lyrical is typically emotionally charged, expressive and powerful, to give dancers a chance to express a range of strong emotions through their dancing.
Dance Legacy Preschool Dance Program Ages 18 months – 6 years
Here at Dance Legacy all of our preschool classes are “age appropriate.” This means that your child is in class only with children of his/her own age. Our age groups are broken into 18 months – 2 years, 3-4 years, 4-5 years, and 5-6 years. Our program is designed to enhance the class experience for all our students with an annual recital performance at the end of the season. Every student participates in a costumed recital performance at the end of the year to the delight of all our parents, friends and families.
Our preschool program is a perfect introduction to the school atmosphere. They learn to follow classroom procedures from the moment they step into the first class. The students learn the importance of standing in line, taking turns and asking permission. By the age of three most children are conversational and primed to absorb information. They quickly grow accustomed to our class routine and many go home and play dance teacher with their family.
The environment at Dance Legacy is safe and productive. A typical class has very little down-time. Our classes are designed to teach the lesson plan with the most information possible in the class time allotted while having fun.
The following is a description of the pre-school classes available here at Dance Legacy. Please read each description to help in selecting the classes your child would like to experience.
Pre-School Tap Class Ages 3 – 6 Tap class for our pre-school age students begins with learning basic tap steps, with some jazz movements as well. Our little student learns the fundamental of rhythm and timing by using fun phrases and upbeat music. They wear special shoes with metal plates on the toes and heels to produce loud sounds using only their feet. Tap is well known for teaching coordination.
Pre-School Ballet Class Ages 3 – 6 Pre-school ballet is a mixture of creative movement and classical ballet technique. Ballet class includes walking on our toes, to bending our knees, to help establish flexibility and control. Activities include using our imagination to become a beautiful princess in a magic castle, pulling stars from the sky and escaping the dragon over the drawbridge into the magic meadow. This allows ballet technique to be creative and exciting. The technique learned in pre-ballet prepares our students for the classical ballet form as they get older.
Pre-School Jazz Class Ages 3 – 6 Jazz is a fun, energetic form of dance performed to popular children’s music. Our little students learn basic jazz technique, combinations and dances to perform in our recital performance. Lessons include, working on flexibility, stretching, conditioning, arms, turns, leaps, jumps, traveling movement and dance combinations. Jazz class is a great way for students to expend some energy.
Pre-School Tumbling Class Ages 3 – 6 In pre-school tumbling children participate in a class that teaches the fundamentals of tumbling and assist them in developing balance, strength, flexibility and poise as well as helping to developing muscle control. Through the use of music, games, obstacle courses, and trampoline this class is a great start to beginning tumbling. Skills taught at this level include, forward rolls, backward rolls, cartwheels, bridge, round-off, handstands, back bend, back kick over, etc.
Kinder Dance Class Ages 18 months – 2 years This class is a great introduction to dance for children as they begin to develop their coordination. For most little ones, this program is the first structured activity they have been exposed to. This class is an excellent group activity where our young dancers learn skills in basic movements, song & dance, and basic ballet steps to age appropriate music. Kinder dance promotes early learning skills and stimulates little one to develop a love of dance through the art of movement.
Mommy & Me Tumbling Ages 18 months – 2 years Mommy/Daddy and me classes can be a fantastic experience for new parents with children 18 months up to age 3, as they assist their child through the tumbling lesson. The class begins with a stretching warm up, to age appropriate music. Next the class uses their imaginations tumbling through the obstacle course. We run, hop, jump and leap through the course in preparation for adding our tumbling skills. Those skills include, forward roll, backward roll, handstands, and working on our bridges. The class progression incorporates mommy less and less as the class progresses through the season. Our goal for the class is to begin developing muscle control, coordination, and balance.
