Mathis School of Dancing

Fun Classes & Adult Classes

Hip Hop
Funky Jazz
Street Tap
Beginners Jazz
Acrobatics
Adult Classes

Dance Styles

Classical Ballet

ballet Classical ballet is a beautiful art form. It teaches students the importance of posture, alignment, technique, grace, strength and discipline. We start our young students with fairy ballet where they learn the basic technique by imagination, play and enjoyment. The music, rhythm and the energy are instantly enjoyable. We do some singing also which they love. We then gradually develop to more formal exercises for technique, posture, strength, graceful arms and body lines and movements and ultimately to pointe work. As a challenging study, ballet stimulated the brain and the memory.

Ballet (Cecchetti Syllabi)

Ballet is based on precise conventional steps performed with graceful and flowing movements. The music, the rhythm, and the energy, are instantly enjoyable. The study of classical ballet increases
student's knowledge and understanding of music, and even introduces them to another language - French! As exercise, ballet provides the ballet best possible work out, giving strength, flexibility, and grace. As a challenging study, ballet also stimulates the brain and the memory.

Tap Dance (T.A.A.D. Syllabus)

tap Tap Dance is a step dance tapped out audibly by means of shoes with hard soles or soles and heels to which taps have been added. By the mid-nineteenth century, African-Americans had combined their footwork with Irish and British clogging steps to create a style called "buck and wing." which became Modern Tap . Some descriptive step names are brush, flap, shuffle, ball change, and cramp roll. Tap dance has further evolved from many individuals who had loved making rhythmical sounds with their feet. People like Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Eleanor Powell and more recently Gregory Hines , and our own David Atkins and the Tap Dogs . Tap dancing has many styles and interpretations of its own and can be very much enjoyed by students of all ages from young children to adults.

Jazz (T.A.A.D. Syllabus )

Jazz dancing is the type of dancing one sees on video clips, on the musical theatre stage and in films like Chicago . It is a freer jazz style of dance than classical although it still has its own technique requiring the student to learn isolations, coordination, strength, flexibility and many different rhythms and styles.

Contemporary

Contemporary is a freeform of dance based partly on classical technique and partly on jazz technique. It involves flexibility and strength and is very expressive using feeling and imagination. It uses many different styles of music and movement at times very graceful and beautiful movements and at times sharp and harsh.

Neo Classical

Neoclassical ballet is a ballet style which uses traditional ballet vocabulary, but is generally more expansive than the classical structure allowed. Spacing in neoclassical ballet is usually more modern or complex than in classical ballet.Although organization in neoclassical ballet is more varied, the focus on structure is a defining characteristic of neoclassical ballet.

Group Singing Lessons

The aim of our group singing class is to give confidence to our students in singing. They will learn breath control, voice production and basic harmony. We will use these classes to teach any songs they will be using in performances.

We adhere to Safe Dance Practices in the school and follow the Dance Code of Ethics.