Dear Dancers, Family Members, and Friends,                                                        

Another year has come and gone for Halestone Dance Studio and it has been a big one!  This past fall, we opened our thirtieth anniversary season with a gala concert at The Theater at Lime Kiln celebrating “30 Years as a Community in Motion.”  After a full year of dance-class excellence (thanks to our great teachers and inspired students), the show we are presenting this weekend is Halestone’s 30^th Anniversary, Spring Recital.  As the season closes with this singular event, I am aware that the past year has also been the start of something new: the beginning of Halestone’s fourth decade as an established dance studio—a small yet vibrant and influential center, dedicated to the study and enjoyment of the moving arts in Rockbridge County.

I love being a dance teacher in Rockbridge County. Dance provides its students with a unique perspective and artistic experience.  Unlike other forms of artistic expression that depend on extraneous materials and mediums in the art- making process, dance begins and ends with one basic element: the energy of a human form, set in time and space.  To practice their art, dancers are asked to commit nothing more (yet nothing less) than their individual and unified being—physical, mental, and spiritual—to the task. Though this requirement is simple in its demand, it can also be a daunting challenge to meet.  It makes those who study dance especially vulnerable and exposed; it takes courage to dance.  And so, as dancers commit themselves to studying the technique and theory of their art, they are also developing a highly practical yet invaluable skill.  Cultivating a fierce ability to be fully engaged is good practice for life in general.

There is another inherent aspect to the study of dance that intrigues me and motivates my passion for teaching.  I believe that in addition to providing students with valuable physical and mental training that helps them learn how to positively focus their energy, dancers are also trained to tap into and activate their personal creative abilities in the process. Sir Ken Robinson, a world-renowned expert on creativity and education—knighted in 1998 for his leadership in a British governmental study on creative and cultural education as it relates to economic development—defines creativity as, “the process of having original ideas of value.”  He also believes that now more than ever, as our society is being pressed and challenged to think in new ways about solutions for age-old problems, we need the leadership of people who think creatively; people with “original ideas of value” who are confident and skilled in the process of implementing those ideas. In fact, he states that it is the people who have cultivated their ability to think creatively who will be the most valued in our society in the decades to come. (To learn more about his perspective, google Sir Ken Robinson on the web.)

Over these past thirty years, the one thing that has continued to set Halestone Dance Studio apart is its dedication to fostering creative thought in the minds of the young people who study within its foursquare, rock and mortar walls.  As a studio, we work collaboratively while exploring our ideas and making them into art. We know what it is to struggle with a difficult creative concept and then feel the wonderful click when things fall into place, a problem is solved, and everything connects.  We  teach that  it is not  just the  artful execution of technique that matters; it is the authenticity of the idea behind the art that determines its power and worth.  We relish the process of seeing what Sir Ken Robinson refers to as the “naturally restless minds and bodies” of young people transformed and focused into moving works of art and personal expression.  It is all this that gives Halestone a proud heritage and unique identity as a studio of dance.

As we head into the future, it is exciting to imagine the work ahead of us. In the decades to come, Halestone Dance Studio will remain dedicated to its students and dedicated to the mission of providing a place for people of all ages to explore the power of their personal creativity through the integrated and disciplined study of dance.  Though none of us definitely knows what the future will bring, there is one thing for certain: all of us will be better prepared to live it more fully with strong minds and bodies and our creative potential realized and released.

Nancy Saylor,

Director - Halestone Dance Studio