Welcome To All That & Jazz

I was told once by my husband that all good stories are love stories. I don’t know if that is true or not, but my relationship with dance was certainly love at first sight, and my feelings about dance are the same today as they were the first time I stepped onto a stage as a very young girl. Like most adults who are involved with dance, I began taking classes at a very young age. The music and movements opened up a world of dance and I never looked back. While the idea of owning and building my own studio only began over 10 years ago when I worked at Judy’s Dance Academy in Florida, my love for teaching began long before that.

“My relationship with dance was certainly love at first sight, and my feelings about dance are the same today as they were the first time I stepped onto a stage as a very young girl.”

After years of dance classes at local studios in the mountains of North Carolina, I eventually turned to teaching. While still performing on traveling dance teams, I discovered I was most happy instructing dance and working with children. I began to put together competition teams and soon watched them excel as individuals and groups. My teams have won state and national titles, trophies, scholarships and cash prizes. I have won many choreography awards on both regional and national levels to include overall top choreography on numerous occasions at various competitions, top teacher, most creative choreography and many specialty awards. Several of my students are now professional dancers in New York, Disney and with traveling companies and, while I am very proud of them, I am also very proud of all my students and am always excited when they drop by to see me.

After relocating to Northern Virginia, I starting coaching the Saunders Middle School Dance Team and that team has placed in every competition they have entered, becoming one of the best middle school dance teams in the area. Since opening All That & Jazz!, I have continued to coach the Saunders teams and I enjoy the interaction with teenage dancers, although my true passion is teaching the youngest dancers the love and discipline of dance . . . and watching for that special look in their eyes when they take the stage. Maybe my husband was right after all; maybe the best stories are love stories.