At Excite Academy, we offer dance classes with a difference!
We believe that a child (or an adult!) has enough going on in their life with school (and work) and growing up and shouldn’t have to come to their fun after school activity and deal with added pressure of exams and competitions. And yet some students thrive on working towards competitions and exams. Here at Excite Academy we aim to offer all types - dance for fun, dance for competitions, dance for exams.
With our approach, dancers are able to thrive and succeed in a nurturing environment where fun is the most important thing and children are encouraged no matter what their ability. We have the freedom of creating our own choreography to our own music and get to have a whole lot of fun! This gives us time to spend on warmups, technique, flexibility and tricks, as well as choreography. Each one of our classes is specifically tailored for the age group of the students and will gradually become harder as the students get older.
All of our classes come with many benefits which include fitness, flexibility, posture, etiquette and of course, confidence! Students will also have performance opportunities throughout the year at our showcases.
Our dance classes are designed to be a place where students are able to thrive, succeed, have fun, and be encouraged no matter what their ability.
This ballet class develops foundational technique in a fun and supportive environment with additional opportunities to develop performance quality, artistry, and storytelling through balletic movement, props, and music. Create a love for ballet in this class as you imagine, explore, and experience the beauty and grace of ballet.
Creative Combination Beginner: These classes provide your young dancer access to technical and artistic skills of ballet, jazz, and contemporary dance skills taught at an age appropriate level through a fun and creative lens. Dancers will have the opportunity to learn more than steps and routines as they explore and develop performance quality, artistic use of the elements of dance, and the creativity of dance making. This is a fantastic introduction to movement that is sure to have your dancer in love with the artistic medium of dance and prepared for further training in any style!
Creative Combination Intermediate: Similar to the beginner class this class provides older dancers with a range of technical and artistic skills with the intention of building an expressive movement vocabulary. With a strong focus on introducing contemporary dance, dancers are encouraged to explore more challenging movement in a safe and supportive environment. In addition to teacher led exercises and choreography, young dancers are encouraged to improvise and create their own choreographic contributions.
Acro dance is a modern style of dance that combines acrobatics and dancing. In these classes, students will learn classic gymnastics and acrobatic skills that have been specifically formatted for dancers.
Our classes have a large focus on three different things: strength, flexibility and tricks! Students will learn acrobatic tricks such as splits, handstands, cartwheels, elbow stands, chest stands, walkovers, partner balances and basic tumbling moves. All of these tricks and the strength and flexibility element are combined together to create dances to fast or slow music that incorporate jazz and contemporary/lyrical.
Students in our classes are expected to practice everything that they learn at home. At the beginning of each year/term we will discuss what each child wants to be able to achieve by a certain checkpoint and work together for that to happen. Although we ask our dancers to practice at home, we request that you make sure that your child does not practice anything that they have not practiced in class without the teacher and do not allow their friends to spot them for tricks in the teacher’s place as they risk a chance of getting hurt.
We offer beginner, intermediate and advanced acro classes. These are usually determined by ability not age.
Our beginners acro class is designed for those that have little or no dance or gymnastics experience. Students will work on flexibility in their legs, back and shoulders, full body strength and basic tricks such as splits, bridges, cartwheels, handstands, elbow stands, kickovers, etc.
Our intermediate class is designed for those that have some dancing or gymnastics experience. Students will continue to work on strength and flexibility and perfecting basic tricks, as well as learning more advanced tricks including walkovers, one-handed cartwheels, switch-leg cartwheels, chest stands and possibly working towards learning basic tumbling moves such as handsprings or side aerials (depending on student and class ability).
To be in this class, it is expected that students are able to do:
-
cartwheels
-
handstands for 20 seconds against a wall
-
splits on at least one side
-
kickovers
-
plank (held for one minute)
-
tick tocks
Because our acro classes (as well as most other dance styles) come with a risk of injury, students must come wearing tight fitting clothing (leotards, singlets, leggings, bike shorts, etc.) that is comfortable and fits well. They must also come with hair tied up and out of their faces (preferably in a bun so that they do not accidentally slip on it while in a handstand, etc.). We also ask that no jewellery is worn. They must also have bare feet at all times during the class. These rules ensure that the risk of injury is reduced as much as possible. We also ask that parents understand and consent to the physical contact between the teacher and child as it is a large portion of teaching acro dance and will help to ensure the safety of your child during tricks.
Contemporary is currently one of the most versatile and unusual dance styles. Over the past few years, it has become greatly popular in the dance world due to it’s flexibility for both dancers and choreographers. It combines every single dance style with elements of ballet, hip hop, lyrical and acro dance. It has been described by dance teachers as “ballet gone wrong”. It has strong elements of ballet technique, however in ballet there is a right and a wrong but in contemporary, any move created is counted as a move. This gives a lot of freedom and ability to express emotions. It is performed to a variety of music which makes it a whole lot of fun!
Lyrical is usually performed to slower, more emotional music and combines more ballet technique than contemporary. It is the typical style that you would see performed in a music video for a slow or sad song.
Our classes combine contemporary and lyrical as they are both very similar and this gives students a broader range of capabilities. Joining a contemporary lyrical class will provide students with possibly the largest range of skills and make them become more dynamic dancers, with a modernised and exciting program.
Our contemporary classes will focus on warm-ups and cool-downs, flexibility, technique, leaps, turns, jumps, floor work, partner work, learning choreography and a portion of improvisation.
Our contemporary/lyrical classes are for dancers from nine years old due to it being a more mature style, with a class for 9-12 year olds and 13-18 year olds. An element of lyrical dance will also be incorporated into the 5 year olds mixed style and 6-8 jazz classes. Contemporary/lyrical will also be a large element of our mixed style adults classes.
We request that all students come wearing comfortable clothes that are easy to dance in (not things that are going to be falling down or distracting them) and with long hair tied up out of the face. We ask that students also attend our classes either in socks or bare feet (with a pair of socks in their bag).
Our Competition Group class was created for students who dance to a higher level and desire more of a challenge than the regular classes. These are mixed classes so dancers from any style can join, and the classes will either be based around the abilities of the majority or will be a fusion of all different dance styles where dancers will become well rounded across various genres.
These classes are an hour and a half each so that we have time to properly warm-up and cool down, work on strength and stretches, then work on skills and choreography, making sure that the dancers are succeeding to their full potential!
If you or your child want to be considered for the class, please attend our auditions at the beginning of the year or get in touch with our office or one of our teachers.
As this class is a lot more fast-paced, students must have a reasonable maturity level and concentration. They must be hard-working and attend all classes and be responsible for catching up if they are not there. We ask that all dancers in our Competition Group come with comfortable and well fitting clothing and their hair tied up and out of their face. We also request that socks and sneakers are brought (other footwear may be be requested later in the year by the teacher).
Private lessons are offered to any student at Excite Academy. They must be pre-booked for a time that suits both the student and the teacher.
The content in each private lesson will be specifically tailored to the individual dancer’s strengths, weaknesses and needs. The dancer and teacher will work together on anything that the dancer wants help with or to learn or that the teacher believes that could do with some extra help on. Private lessons can be arranged for those that are struggling in classes and want a bit of extra help, those that have missed one or more lessons and want help to catch up or those that are wanting to become more advanced dancers and learn harder work than the others in their classes. They can also be arranged for students who want solos, duets or trios choreographed for performances or competitions.
To book a private lesson or for more information, contact our office or speak with one of our staff members.
