My Own Dance Studio?

I am considering opening a dance studio in town. My idea is to have this space solely as studio space, so the studio would only host dancers, yoga classes, or other barefoot types of events.

I have been looking at a space that is located downtown Fairbanks. It was “The Elbow room”, which was originally a bar during the ‘pipeline days’ with a huge fireplace at one end and has historic status, something that just lends more to the ambiance and overall feel of this space. Very neat place, centrally located, lots of parking, and the space is HUGE; bigger than what I currently need but I could easily grow into it. The space is 1760 square feet, with most of the area being 24’ wide.

The building is now owned by a very nice couple who live upstairs, and downstairs they have a music room that is rented out to bands, and a smaller area that the Buddhist Meditation Center rents. They are excited about how well a dance studio would fit into the environment they are try to create and we are currently in preliminary negotiations about how this could work. I meet with them last night to fully explain my vision, and to answer some questions they had for me regarding lights, paint, and a huge ugly heating fixture that they might eventually replace.

We measured the space last night and the primary dance studio (from fireplace to the first support pole not visible in the picture above, there are two in total) is 26’ long. I told them I would need the space between the 2 poles as dance floor as well (for workshops primarily) and that adds another 14’ of length to the total studio space. The rest of the space would be for a changing area, a waiting area for students between classes and eventually some retail. The studio space would also have mirrors along the west wall, which is on the left side of this picture for at least the 26 feet of the primary studio space, and perhaps even for the additional 14’.

I TOTALLY see it in my head, but had to make sure the ‘numbers’ would work too so I am working on a business plan and budget while I wait for them to respond to my original letter of intent where I listed what I would need done to the space to make it work, primarily, I need a dance floor installed for at least 2/3 of the space. They said they would have their reply to me by next Monday.

Mirrors are my biggest expense. I don’t have $3k to put into them as soon as I open, although I am looking at small business loans, and I am considering having a fundraiser Hafla (or three), to help raise funds for mirrors. In the interim, I have 6 closet doors that are mirrors I could use. . . other than that, the owners seem willing to do a lot of work to get me set up, including fresh paint, installing floors, and even assisting with creating the changing area.

I have been considering doing this for a couple years now and while I have done some research into running a studio, this would be my first endeavor in running a small business. The economy may not be great right now and opening a small business is always scary, but there is definitely a need for good studio space in town (evident by the fact that in 6 months I have changed locations twice already). I am also new in town, and don’t have a huge student base, yet, but even now my own classes should easily cover half if not three-fourths of the lease on the space I am looking at. The tricky part is ensuring that I can rent the space out to cover the rest of the rent, and then hopefully make a little at first.

I am trying not to get too excited about this prospect, but I think I might be able to do this!!

Even though we just bought a house, we are finally getting to a point to we are getting out from under all the debt we had that was created by my initial move to Florida, and we have eliminated almost all but our household bills. With such few bills, and me working a regular job I think I can even handle the first 6 months of scarcity. And should my regular job fail due to the poor economy, then I could devote myself full time to my studio, so I actually see it as a fall back plan!

If I were to do this, it would be happening late summer/fall, tentatively August or September. If it does not happen this fall, I will likely wait a year and try again next year

Becoming Mundane

Moving to Alaska has prompted a few changes in my day to day life desires, or maybe the move was just another step towards this shift in priorities. No longer do I desire to be active all the time, or out of my house. While I still enjoy outdoor activities and dance will always be a part of my life, I find that am also enjoying quiet time at home, working on project around the house, that in past I used to find tedious and mundane.

Case in point: we did yard work all day yesterday and I am tired but delighted with our results! Who would have thought I would LIKE to do yard work??

Sunday morning we heading out for our regular breakfast at “The Diner”, a local diner that has good food, nice waitresses, and is within walking distance to our house. For the past three weeks we have walked there, but since we had to run errands afterwards, we drove the truck but found that parking at the Diner is a pain since they have a little parking lot! We managed to find a spot, but next time, and until the weather changes enough to be prohibitive to walking, we will walk the mile to get there.

After breakfast we headed to Lowes. WE had a list, and a 10% off entire purchases, and since we just sold the trailer we had some cash in hand so we were looking for some ‘big’ items; grill, lawnmower, mosquito magnet, patio furniture, and a few other small items for smaller projects. We didn’t get everything on our list, but we now have a new lawnmower (electric!) that helped us with our yard work, and a grill that Michael needs to assemble so we can use it next weekend. Patio furniture that we liked the most we found at Fred’s and will go get that next weekend.

So, after 5 hours of shopping and working, we have a pretty trimmed yard that looks less like a meadow (less bugs this way too), and come next weekend will have a lovely deck, complete with some patio furniture to enjoy the new view once we assemble the new grill!

Next weekend we are planning to put in raised beds. Why? Because loads of people grow their own food up here, and though my thumbs is about as far away from green as one can get, Michael is of the mind that we can do it too. So, we shall try!

Turns out being mundane really “ain’t all that bad”

Planting roots

Over the weekend we helped our neighbor remove the large swing set that was in our front yard and then we put it in their yard. They have 4 kids of various ages and will get a lot more use out of it that we ever will, plus we want to put in some raised beds and grow some vegetables! We will start on that next weekend.

We also (finally) got the old sink out, and installed the new one. We did end up having to use the dremmel on it since the old faucet was so rusted in place, but once we cut that out, installation of the new faucet was a piece of cake, and we have a GORGEOUS new fully functional faucet with higher arm so the stockpot fits under the sink properly now!

In other news, we sold the trailer on Monday. The trailer that was our constant companion for 4 weeks, and brought us to Alaska is soon to be heading back to the Outside, and I feel like now we really are staying put for good. And that feels nice

Clucking Blossom and Cake

Cold Fusion Tribal Dance (CFTD) performed at Clucking Blossom this past weekend. Rachel, Liz and Fruitcake did a Bollywood dance, Mary did her sword solo, and all of us present performed Lunatics. Out of 37 pictures, 6 were of dirt and I tossed out the other 20 or so because they were not portraying us as anything other than gorgeous or awesome : )

Sadly we didn’t get any pictures of the Lunatics performance because I asked Priscilla, our Fabulous Personal Assistant For the Day, to video that performance but it was wobbly with too many people walking in front of it to really use it. Hopefully some pictures of Lunatics will crop up shortly! The rest can be viewed starting here

Dancing with CFTD is fun and challenges me to step outside of my Improvisational Box to learn choreography so I am learning some new skills, plus, I am working on my performance persona more than I would have with just my own troupe, but more than anything I appreciate the friendship of these ladies.

It was also Mary’s last birthday where she is still “younger than Jesus” (her words!) so, I made cupcakes and we enjoyed them post-performance. These were from a ginger chocolate recipe I found in a cookbook I recently purchased at B&N called Cupcakes by Pamela Clark. This book is full of gorgeous pictures with cupcakes that include ingredients for an adult palate. They turned out pretty good, and I am looking forward to making more!