The History of KIDDANCE

When Ginny East opened her first school in Florida in 1989, she recognized immediately the important role children's classes play in the overall success of a good dance program. While some studios assign less experienced teachers to youth classes under the premise that beginner students require a simpler regimen, she believed setting a sound foundation for future learning was key to developing stronger dance artists in the long term, which meant that well‐trained teachers were vital in the foundation levels.

Ginny East had one core belief ‐ that if a student falls in love with dance first and foremost, it will make them willing and eager to embrace the discipline and hard work required to develop their skills later.

This philosophy encouraged her to devote a great deal of attention to the youth dance program and it began to evolve and take shape, becoming a defined system that introduced young students to dance in ways that made the art exciting and engaging.

She wrote a syllabus with a system that involved stepping away from the traditional routine of beginner dance classes that relied on watering down basic dance principals and demanding endless repetition of skills in an old school way (which so often bored young students) and instead, relied on innovative methods to camouflage basic dance principals in games and exciting exercises that would set the stage for future learning.

With an emphasis on creative expression, physical awareness, enhancing coordination, and developing the listening and learning skills required for more formal dance classes, the KIDDANCE training method was born.

The classes incorporate props and teaching aids to make learning to dance fun, set in an inviting atmosphere filled with theatrical lighting to make every dance class an engaging experience. In the twenty plus years since Ginny first designed this new approach to teaching youth dance education, hundreds of schools across the country (as well as many in the Sarasota area) have incorporated her training method and continue to follow her lead.

The new Kiddance dance program was popular and in no time, FLEX grew from one small room in one location to several rooms in various locations serving over 100 students.

In effort to pass on the theory and educational elements so important to the program, Ginny wrote an involved syllabus and began further defining the youth dance exercises. She and her husband at the time, Mark Hendry, made two training videos and produced a music CD for dance classes. Next, they began a training program for all the teachers working at FLEX.

The following year, Dance Teacher Magazine featured their program in their international magazine and the Hendry's were inundated with requests for KIDDANCE licensing and/or training. Not wanting to dilute their focus, which they feared might compromise the quality of their primary school (FLEX), they chose not pursue KIDDANCE as a corporate interest, and instead opened their training program to teachers nation wide.

Teachers began joining them from all corners of the United States and Canada (and one teacher from Germany and another from Singapore) to participate in KIDDANCE training. Hundreds of KIDDANCE syllabuses were sold nationwide, along with training videos and CDS. Ginny, already popular master teachers for organizations such as Dance Master’s of America and Dance Educators, was now asked to teach youth dance education classes for dozens of state and national conventions and she hosted youth dance education seminars in other schools and for dance teacher organizations, such as ten years running at the Boston Teacher's Training School.

She also began writing and publishing a newsletter of creative dance concepts for dance teachers called KIDDANCE. In 2005, the Hendry's sold FLEX and retired to the North Georgia Mountains.

They retired the KIDDANCE Company as well, though hundreds of studios nationwide still used the program with their blessing. As Ginny continued to receive requests for dance education products and/or training and consultation, she later decided to resurrect the company as a resource for dance teachers nationwide with an online dance education newsletter, educational products and teacher's exchange.

In 2010, Ginny moved back to Sarasota. Missing dance and recognizing a need for positive youth activities to combat the challenges presented to youth today, she decided perhaps it was time to come out of retirement and open another dance facility, with the emphasis on dance as a path to personal growth for both youth and adults.
With an evolved vision for a dance program that includes yoga for flexibility training, balance and to enforce a positive world view and appreciation for the arts and others, KIDDANCE is again the cornerstone of the youth dance education program.