How Studio Owner, Vickie Szeplaki, Sets Her Studio Apart
As a Once Upon a Ballet Licensed Studio, fairytales and dreams can certainly be found at Kidz Gym and Dance. Owner Vickie Szeplaki makes a point to empower and spark her students’ imaginations by bringing creativity and fantasy into her classes. “I love the program. It’s one of those things that made my studio in my area stand out and be different.”
Vickie uses a new Once Upon a Ballet theme in her classes each month. She starts talking about it the month before to get her students and parents excited. When it’s time for the new theme, she has a backdrop related to it hung across one of the walls in her studio, and a special theme-related prop waiting for her students.
Kidz Gym and Dance is a space for Vickie’s students to create, imagine, and play, but Vickie didn’t always view dance in this way. Over the course of her career, Vickie’s intentions have changed as a dance teacher and studio owner. As she reflected on her early years in the industry, she told us that she started out determined to make ballerinas. Now, Vickie has a different outlook on the importance of dance in children’s lives: “They need a place to go and just be themselves, and for the little kids, that includes fairytales. Don’t crush their dreams. Let them dream, let them pretend they’re a princess, let them dream of owning a castle… That’s what kids are supposed to do.”
A Place Where Friends Help Friends
When Vickie opened Kidz Gym and Dance, she envisioned it would have an inclusive atmosphere, where friends helped friends in class. She wanted a place where children could come, express themselves, BE themselves, and get away from the busy-ness of life. “What’s expected of them [today] in elementary, middle school, and high school is just so different. Children just need a place to go to be themselves… Our job is to be one big family and to help each other and support each other.”
For Vickie’s youngest age group at her studio, creating a place of warmth and friendship also means bringing fairy tales to life. “I want to help kids to love dance, because dance helped me in multiple ways… [Dance] is something that changes your life. It really does set you up for success.” Vickie came across the Once Upon a Ballet Curriculum four and a half years ago. “This is a program I never would have thought of. It’s very unique and different. When I found it I was thinking: Wow this is great for the preschoolers.”
“Ballet can be very rigid and dry, and it can be very boring. This [curriculum] introduces ballet [so that children] are learning ballet steps but almost sublimily. They don’t realize they’re standing there and trying to do the steps or that perfect port de bras because of the way we present it… They’re learning ballet movements in a fairy tale… That’s so much more exciting and rewarding and enjoyable for them.”
Differences Since Using the OUB Curriculum
Since she introduced the Once Upon a Ballet curriculum at her studio, Vickie has noticed one big difference: “The kids actually go home and practice. They want to be able to skip or twirl like a certain character from class, so they go home and practice.” And when they come back to class, they say, “Miss Vickie, look! I’ve practiced my…”
“They’re so much a part of the story [in class]. And that’s where the fairy tales come in. We’re often too quick to crush kids’ dreams. Let them be. Let them dream. Let them feel like a princess around the house… and let them practice.”
Another difference Vickie has noticed since she started teaching through fairy tales: Her preschool dance students look forward to coming back each week to find out what happens next in the story. She noted how the story of Hansel and Gretel was new to many of her young students, “they were excited to hear what was going to happen next.”
Vickie has been using the curriculum long enough that she now has students who have come up through the program at her studio. “I’ve had the studio for four and a half years, and I’ve been using the OUB curriculum that long. I’ve got kids at the point where they remember being a part of these fairytale stories when they were little. [They remember] learning whatever steps we were doing at the time [and now] later on use in ballet. I’ve found that to be really cool.”
The OUB Teacher Certification Course
Being an OUB Certified Teacher herself, Vickie also enrolled one of her preschool dance teachers in the course. “I had a teacher just finish the certification program and I think it really benefited her, being a very young teacher… I really wanted her to understand the curriculum, and how it was set up and how it should be [taught].”
“If you have someone in your studio who you want to take on [teaching] this curriculum the way it should be taught, they really need to do the certification program. I think it really helps all around… the understanding of what to teach at what age… The 3 years olds are going to learn this, this and this. They’re not going to be ready for something more advanced. Build a foundation [first].”
From Student to Studio Owner
Vickie found her way into ballet at the age of seven in New Jersey. She spent her childhood studying at the New Jersey School of Ballet, and by high school she was in New York City working with Madame Darvash, a strict Russian Vaganova ballet teacher who changed her world. Madame Darvash was anatomy based in her training and helped Vickie understand how ballet worked in the human body. This opened up Vickie’s world, and she reflects that the anatomical experience with Madame Darvash was one of the most influential on her dance journey. Madame Darvash made the lightbulbs go off in Vickie’s brain, teaching her not to fight with her natural anatomy and to dance with what she had.
Vickie spent time performing in jazz and tap and singing around the world before she eventually settled back in New Jersey. She married, had children, and knew she wanted to start a studio, so she decided to purchase one. In 1999 Vickie purchased a music and dance studio from a husband and wife duo who were looking to sell. She ran it until 2009 when she shifted her focus to her non-profit ballet company, collaborating with local studios to produce annual nutcrackers. Her passion for working with kids eventually led her to opening her second studio, Kidz Gym and Dance.
As a seasoned studio owner, we finished our conversation with Vickie by asking her one piece of advice she would give to someone new to the industry. She told us: “Listen to your clients. They really are there to help you be successful. Yes, you have an idea of what you want to do. But if the parents and the clients aren’t into it, let it go.”
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What We’re All About
At Once Upon a Ballet, we want to help you teach dance in a way that sparks your students’ imaginations, keeps their attention, and has them leaving class excited for what’s next.
DANCE CURRICULUMS
Our complete curriculums for toddler and preschool dance and children’s ballet give you a full year of lesson plans for each age group. Our lesson plans are rooted in child development and teach dance through imagination and play. We strongly emphasize correct, age-appropriate ballet techniques for young children, as well as building self-esteem, creativity, problem-solving, and classroom skills.
CERTIFIED TEACHERS
If you teach toddler or preschool dance, our teacher certification course gives you the tools to better connect with your littlest students, keep their attention, and have better classroom behavior.
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