By: Deborah Johnson Wood
T3 Dance Elite has teamed up with East Grand Rapids-based The Moving Company to form a dance instruction alliance that maximizes the strengths of each company's instructors and choreographers. This year, T3 Together with The Moving Company expects to teach 730 students in its expanded studio at 644 Lovett Street.
Torrey Thomas, director and owner of T3, is the artistic director for the new alliance.
"Torrey is a very successful competition teacher and director who wins awards all over the state for his choreography," says Lynda Durell, owner of The Moving Company. "We're very interested in learning what it is in those routines that make them so great. As a complement to the choreography, The Moving Company teaches excellent technique."
The alliance brings together nine instructors who are learning new dance techniques, teaching methods, and artistic interpretation from each other.
Students range in age from three-years-old to mature adults. The studio offers tap, jazz, ballet, point classes, hip-hop, Irish dance, and tumbling, with a specialty in boys-only classes.
"They like coming in with just guys," Durell says, "and we do a lot of sports training and muscle building in those classes."
In addition to regular classes, competition teams prepare for competitive dance events across the state.
Durell and Thomas have known each other for ten years. Durell says they had a sense they'd be working together sometime.
"We share the same passion for teaching," Durell says. "We got together for lunch one day, and by the end of lunch we knew we were going to do something really great together."
Source: Lynda Durell, The Moving Company; Michelle C. LaPreze, Professional Marketing
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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