There's a dance studio in town that has just doubled its floor space and increased its number of teachers from 12 to 22 shining the spotlight on bigger and better things to come.
Excalibur Theatre Arts Company has taken over the motorcycle shop on Ogilvie Street and expanded its dimensions, setting the stage for more studio and office space, more dressing room square footage, an expanded dance wear shop and a new main lobby where free wireless internet connections will be available for those people waiting for their students to finish their lessons.
Dave and Bonnie Leach are pretty excited about the expansion and renovations taking place this summer.
"It's a broad sweeping change," said Dave. "Like Bonnie says, it's like a new beginning."
The renovations have been extensive to brighten up the formerly black walls of the old motorcycle shop.
"The cool thing is we've basically done it all ourselves and we're really proud of that," said Bonnie. "The new space allows us to offer more classes, more disciplines and more levels."
There is even an instructor who will teach traditional Irish dance - river dance - and Bonnie said she doesn't think there's anyone else in town that teaches it.
The services included in the updating go as far as convenient methods of payment like credit card and debit card options.
"This has been a long time in coming and we are especially happy to offer the new facilities and the upgrades to our long-time students and we also are able to welcome new students, too," said Bonnie.
Classes start Sept. 7 and registration is ongoing Monday to Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. and on the long weekend Saturday to Monday from 1 to 6 p.m.
There are more teen and adult classes that have been added to the schedule in order to meet the increasing demand by mature students.
With all the new changes to the studio space, the Leach family thought they should also change things up a bit by offering more performance opportunity to the students by hosting a Christmas recital for the first time, where students can showcase their talent, as well as keeping the summer recital on the roster.
