Today we’d like to introduce you to Paige Bonner
Paige, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
When I was 3 years old, my mother started me in dance with Charlotte Ann‘s School of Dance in South Knoxville! Under her direction, I studied tap, ballet, jazz, lyrical, and Pointe. We performed many places in and around Knoxville. We used to take trips every summer to Dance Educator conventions and workshops being taught by the best dancers in the United States! Those were great experiences! I eventually started student assisting in high school and transitioned into teaching assistant in college! Eventually, I was doing all choreography and teaching until she retired in 2012! At that point, the studio moved to our current location on Maryville Pike! Our first official recital under the name The Dance Academy South was 2013! We added clogging instruction and hip-hop instruction as well! We had our recital at the Clarence Brown Theatre on UT campus! The following recital we moved to do the Knoxville Civic Auditorium, which is where we currently still have our yearly recital. Our recital this year is June 14th! We also perform yearly at the Fantasy of Trees! That is one of our favorite things to do as a studio! Three years ago, we had a group of teenagers who wanted to participate in competition! Though we are a recreational school, we told them that we would hold a tryout and take a group. They loved it, and we have been competing ever since!
With the aid of my two teaching assistants, Michelle Brichetto and Abby Britt, we are always ready for anything!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road! First of all, establishing classes and ultimately putting on performances are challenges in themselves. All of that, thankfully, fell into place and, within the first couple of years, we were on a great system!One of the most major challenges was during the 2020 season. Of course, like everyone else in the world, we could not have classes and our recital at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium was canceled. Since it was in the spring, the kids had gone to class since September and all dance costumes had been ordered. It was also tough on a small business not to have any income, but still had bills. In order to keep some income coming in, I posted all classes on YouTube. Those that could, still paid tuition. I’m so grateful! We weathered the storm, and had our recital on a random Sunday in September. Then we rallied and started our season the week after that and had our next recital in June like always. Ever since then, we have been right on schedule!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I specialize in the dance education of children from the age ages of 3 and up! I teach tap, ballet, lyrical, jazz, and Pointe! I have teachers who help me each week with those classes and choreography! I also brought in clogging and have a teacher for that! In addition, I also brought in hip-hop, and I have my teacher that teaches that!
I grew up in South Knoxville and took dance in South Knoxville from Charlotte Ann! Anyone who took dance in South Knoxville took from her and I taught for her for years! I would say I’m definitely known for being a dance teacher in our community.
I am most proud of the kids! I am so very proud to help give my dancers self-confidence, and something that they do that they are proud of! Every recital when I see their faces, beaming with self-confidence and being proud of themselves, it brings tears to my eyes! I love the kids like my own and in our community, we have a very close dance family! I could not be more grateful!
We are a non-competitive school even though we do have one group of teenagers who compete. They do one or two competitions per season. We are mostly recreational! We welcome anyone and turn no one away! We try to make everyone feel like they are a shining star but certainly give constructive criticism. We try to build self-confidence and build character with the kids. We are also very conservative with the costumes that we select and the music we use and the dance choreography they perform. We strive really hard to keep every little girl a little girl for as long as we can.
Any big plans?
My plans for the future are just to keep the building full of kids each week and keep giving them the best dance education we can, to keep our dance family as close as we are now and to build up little girls and boys as they grow up!
We are looking forward to our competitions coming up in February and May, our performance at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium on June 14th and the future! We always do performances at the Fantasy of Trees as well, and we always leave there looking forward to the next!
I don’t foresee any big changes in the future!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Thedanceacademysouth.com
- Instagram: The Dance Academy South
- Facebook: The Dance Academy South
