Surviving the Merge of Two Dance Studios! How Loyalty pays off through the years...
Some stories are meant to be shared. They teach us about life, values, strength, support, trust and loyalty. This is the story of a dancer, Alina Lanza, who from a very young age knew what she wanted to do, and after persistence, the love for dancing, the support of her family, and hard work... she was able to do more than she ever dreamed of!
It was September of 1983, when Tonie Lanza left the supermarket with her 9 year-old daughter, Alina. As they walked by a dance studio, Heidi & Joe Melchiona Dance Center, Alina says: "Mom... I want to dance again..." Tonie left the grocery cart outside the studio and registered Alina for two dance classes a week, not even realizing that at that very moment, she sealed the course of her daughter's life. Alina wasn't a stranger to leotards, tights, and dance shoes. At the age of 3, she studied ballet with Vivian Greer de Digón.
At the end of the first year at the Heidi and Joe Center, Heidi Melchiona realizes the potential of her little dancer. She had strength, grace, and discipline. She pointed out to her mother that Alina was ready for competitions. So at the young age of 10, she began competing in regional competitions. By 12, she was in New York competing for Nationals! On this occasion, she won 3rd place and the Photogenic Award. This was just the beginning of what Alina Lanza could do. For the next 7 years, Heidi Melchiona greatly influenced Alina's dancing. She was her teacher and mentor. During her last year at the Heidi and Joe Center, in 1993, Alina was not only a student but also a dance teacher. At the age of 19, she moved on to become a dancer for The Heat. She was there for one season; when her restlessness, typical of that age, made her take some time off to rethink her life, her ambitions, dreams, desires... her future. She was confronted with many roads to choose from, but at the moment of making a final decision, she told her mother what she really wanted to do: Open her own dance studio.
And so in August of 1996, after consulting her ideas with her family and dance mentors, Alina Lanza opened "Just Dance It!" in Miami, Florida.
Being new in the business, Alina, with her mom by her side, started very small, a one-classroom studio. Her first year did quite well... she had 100 students, a few instructors, basic dances, one end-of-the-year recital at a High School Auditorium, and quite an unsophisticated, black and white, recital program...Being a part of this dance studio since its beginnings, with my own four daughters, I must say that looking back I remember being impressed at how serious and determined Alina took upon herself to make this first recital grand! And it was! When the lights in the auditorium turned off, and the show began... I was truly impressed... It was Broadway!
It didn't take long before Just Dance It! grew into a magnificent outlet for children to express their emotions, release their stress, grow into young and healthy adulthood, guided by the hand of, what Alina had become for them now: their teacher and mentor.
It didn't take long before Just Dance It! had to be transferred to a bigger location to accommodate the growing number of children registering each year! For the recitals to be moved from a High School Auditorium to the Miami-Dade County Auditorium! And for the recital programs to be much more sophisticated, filled with colorful pages... ABSOLUTELY REGAL!!
And it didn't take long for Just Dance It! to be placed among the top 50 Dance Studios IN THE NATION thanks to all the regional, state, national and world competitions it has been a part of, in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, New York, Rhode Island, Las Vegas, Italy, and now... Germany, always sweeping away with the awards...
Anyone would think that this is it! Alina has done it all! Has it all! But no...it doesn't end here...she wanted one more thing...
In June of 2004, Alina Lanza impressed everyone once again by taking another bold step... She went back to her roots, to the people who influenced her dancing the most during her childhood, and upon hearing that Heidi and Joe Melchiona, her mentors, were retiring, Alina bought the studio from them! The dance studio where she grew up in was now her own!! She began dancing there at the young age of 9, and now, some twenty years later, it was hers!
From 479 students at Just Dance It!, she now has 600 more from her new "Bird Road Center"... more than 1,000 students under her wings. What an accomplishment... The transition wasn't easy, but she made it work, once again, with Tonie by her side. Even before she bought the new studio, she showed her love and supported her future students at the Las Vegas DEA National competition in 2004. She made it very clear from the beginning, that things would not be the same at the "Bird Road Center". She needed to reorganize the place, the instructors, the students, even her life... Now she was dealing and she had to blend both studios together, keeping them apart at the same time. Alina lost a couple of students (or parents) who couldn't deal with the changes, the restructuring, the new discipline that came aboard... but Alina Lanza is not who she is today, and she couldn't have reached the heights she has reached so far, by letting things slide, and so she points out ... "If you're going to invest your time and money into your child's dance, you need to trust me, you can't question my decisions..."
Alina Lanza's loyalty to her dreams, her mentors, her studio, her students, and especially to herself... paid off! She is a busy woman today, busy doing what she loves to do best: To dance. Twenty-two years ago, at the age of 9, she told her mother she wanted to dance again...and from that day on, she never stopped dancing. Congratulations Alina!
"I make a promise to all my students to bring out the best in them. Their success is not about me, it's not about me becoming renowned through them, it's all about them...it's about me creating stars..."