Reviews of Turning Pointe Dance Studio LLC (Dance School)

Chuck Charles

Danced here for 15 years and loved every second of it! Ms. Lisa is such a kind and talented person to work with!

Arso .

I danced here from a young age till middle school age, shortly after Pre-Pointe. I gave Turning Pointe three stars for a few reasons. For simplicity, I will list the pros and the cons separately instead of doing a massive paragraph dump. PROS - 1) Mrs. Lisa was cool, I guess. 2) The studio had a homely feeling, and it was nice being able to perform on stage and feel a part of a team. I was bullied in school, so being on the stage felt... nice. 3) Accomodating for dancers who have larger feet... to an extent. (Will be explained later in the Cons section). The pros were that there was a wide range of shoe sizes that could be ordered from a catalogue. 4) The studio is right next to the library, so if your ride is late, you can try and sneak out and go to the library, or wait and watch the next class dance as you wait. 5) Accomidating for dancers who are younger, with injuries, and/or disabilities, also to an extent. (Again, will explain the cons under cons). There was a girl in my year who fell and suffered a jarred back. She was allowed to sit out for a week or two since agitating an injury can make it worse. Mrs. Lisa was also helping dancers who had a harder time grasping certain parts of the routine or the warm-up by going over it with them 1 v 1. She also has older dancers learn the younger dancers' routines to perform on stage along with them, so the girls have someone to follow along with. 6) Wide variety of costumes. Some of the costumes were super cool. Plus, I really liked flipping through the costumes and pretending what I would look like in them. CONS - 1) Accomodating for dancers with larger feet to an extent. - One year, my class had to use tan heels, and she had a limited collection. They weren't catalogue order, especially since they were from her personal collection under the table near the door. I had to use the largest shoe (I have unnaturally large feet), and even then, it was a little tight. Thankfully, I broke them in some. If a dancer had larger feet than I did, I feel sorry for them. 2) Accomodating for dancers with a disability to an extent. I was a disabled dancer. In order to retain my anonymity to some extent, I will not state my disability, but I will say it made it hard for me to follow along in class and gave me persistent balance issues. The auditory stimulation and physical activity made me groggy, and it made it harder for me to memorize routines. Mrs. Lisa shamed me in front of the entire class for not getting the routine as fast as the other girls, which made my issues with self-confidence worse. I was even forced to record a video and watch as the girls irritatedly started the dance again. The dancing was fun as hell, but man, Mrs. Lisa, you really have to be a little more patient with slow people like me. 3) The student environment. It may just be my year, but I felt a sense of hostility from the other students. I was the "black sheep" of the group - I was visibly the heaviest student, the tallest, and also the only one with a disability, and probably one of the few who attended public schooling. All of the other girls attended private or Catholic schooling, and had their own cliques. As a child, I tried to make friends, but it was hard and I felt isolated from the rest of the group. It was a part of my decision to stop dancing. 4) The scheduling. The schedules are hard to work with sometimes. The classes are on weekdays, and they're either a) right after school or b) right at dinnertime. During my years of dance, we got too much takeout since the schedule was hard to work with. 5) Not accomodating for dancers with shorter hair or dyed hair. You HAVE to have a bun or a ponytail at recital time. Right after recitals, I would go back wild and dye my hair or get pixie cuts since I knew I couldn't get that during the dance season. Those are my pros and cons, and my overall experience at Turning Pointe. This is just my experience, and if you want to send your child here, please do more research beyond my review since I don't speak for everyone. Thank you.