Rio Dance Studio started as a “too good to be true”.

as children, dancers learn to grow, express, feel, and cope through movement. what an incredible gift! and then we turn 18 and are often faced with a choice: pursue professional dance or “stop” dancing.

what if there was a community space for adults where dance as art, movement as human expression could be nurtured? where bodies from every journey, of all sizes and abilities could experience their internal rhythm, and the rhythm of music? it sounded “too good to be true”. so it had to be done. 

Rio Dance Studio is a collaborative space. collaboration between artists, founded on the belief that each student and teacher is equally creative and valuable in the movement space. an agreement with our bodies to listen, observe, honor and express. the hope is that it will become home to a rich diversity of community and movement traditions - each of us committed to learning from and honoring each other. 

it is a sacred space - made sacred by the rhythms that charge the room, the breath that fills the furthest corners, and the humans that live life within and outside its walls. 

we are coming alive here. 

“the definition of rhythm is the patterned, recurring alternations of contrasting elements. in music this is the high notes and the low notes, the sound and silence.

we need our opposites to animate life, or else we fall into monotony.

-Elena Dominguez

THE SOUL OF IT:

you are the art.

we value movement as an art form. 

we value collaboration and inclusion.

we commit to caring for and joining with our bodies, living embodied.

we honor art in all forms - music, words, song, storytelling, etc.

we commit to always learning, engaging with humility.

we care for our mother earth with the same reverence as our own skin and bones.