Academy of Dance Yankton’s Young Dancers Are Feeling The Beat vBy Reilly Biel The town’s two dance studios the Green Room and Academy of Dance - provide dancers, from grade school through high school, with the opportunity to take their skills beyond local auditoriums. Each studio has a competitive dance team that compete in and out of state at a professional level. Each of the studio’s owners Derota Dannenbring of Academy of Dance and Robert and Timera Massey of the Green Room - spoke of their respective competitive dance teams and the role it plays in their dancers’ development, both personally and professionally. Academy of Dance Located in a private location near the edge of Yankton, the Academy of Dance boasts two dance floors with floor to ceiling mirror that enables dancers to view their movements with almost perfect clarity. The location is still relatively new to Dannenbring and her crew, all of whom Dannenbring said are enjoying the new environment. “The dance studio here is as big as the one at the Summit Center, so we can rehearse really comfortably,” she explained. The reception area of the studio displays past publications of Dannenbring and the academy, which Dannenbring has been a part of since the mid-1990s. Also visible are the numerous awards the academy’s dancers have won in years past, including a few from last year’s dance season, which is held during the first few months of the year. Dannenbring is particularly proud of the “Quantum Leap” and “Standing Ovation” awards her dancers won at a competition last year in Omaha. 12vHERVOICEvMARCH/APRIL 2019 “At times, we go to competitions that have 500 dancers, so it’s very competitive,” she said. The academy accepts dancers in second through 12th grades, with most of those dancers eligible to join the competitive side of the studio. Styles of dance taught range from classical ballet to Bollywood. As far as competitions go, Dannenbring has a soft spot for “open category,” which allows for the mixing of various dance styles. “It’s fun to go into that different category area where we can be very creative,” she said. There are no tryouts to be part of the competitive dance team; any dance student that wants to join can. The professional dance competitions Dannenbring’s students go to typically have two or three of the following levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced. Dannenbring is insistent that the competitions she selects for her students to be a part of have to have professional judges, regardless of the competition size and location. “I always make sure that the judges aren’t semi-professionals, but professionals with a lot of education and background (in dance),” she said. “We appreciate the feedback we get from them because it helps (the students) to become stronger dancers.” She has witnessed this strength in her students grow over the last seven years the studio has offered competitive dancing, noting that most of the Yankton High School students that are part of the school dance team also take classes at the academy during weekends. “They really put in a lot of hours and are still trying to be cheerleaders and take AP classes,” she said. “I believe they manage their time wisely, and that’s what makes them winners.” Those hard-working older students are a source of inspiration to the younger up-and-coming dancers, she added.