Update... after leaving my review and finally getting a response, the studio owner blocked me and my entire family on all social media platforms but is still using our daughter's posts and pics for their social pages and website. She has also done the same to alumni students from the studio that have graduated and has undercover been an adult bully to children and families.
Our experience started off very well coming to IDA. We had two dancers, one of which wanted to be on the competitve team. We had a drop in class for a private tryout since we came in late to the ongoing season and the instructors and studio owner welcomed us in with heartfelt greetings. They said our daughter had a lot of potential to be great and accepted her on the comp elite team. We were estatic and liked what we seen.
We were with IDA for about 5 seasons and seen tremendous growth in our daughter. She was happy so we were happy. As a father, I was never in the mix of all the happenings with the dance world, I was present and offered assistance when needed as a Prop Dad and so forth. Things were going very well for the time we were there.
I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I do know when we had the core of the team (Senior girls) graduate and go on to future endeavours, there was an immediate shift in atmosphere. There was an obvious tension growing, not just in the team girls, which I chalked up to healthy competition as with all team sports. But there was a growing tension with the studio owner, instructors, and dance moms. It became so much that it started affecting the girls. My daughter began skipping out on classes because the instructor that was supposed to be teaching the class was not there (which the studio owner doubled as instructor) but rarely taught the classes we were paying for towards the end of the 5 years. We were told that it was because guest choreographers were invited. This happened for weeks at a time and the dance discipline we were paying for was not being taught as promised.
Things started becoming more apparent when some of the dancers began leaving the studio and the tension between the studio owner and instructors was on full display for the girls. We toughed thru the next two seasons and mustered everything up to typical dance drama. Unfortunately, to my surprise, it was imbedded deeper than that and it was affecting my daughter, family, and other team friends. Fastforward to the begining or start of the new season, we received a welcome back email to start with registering for and paying the fees for the required intensive training for being on the team. We paid the fees, had everything scheduled, and then hours after we receive the welcome back, we received a dissmismal from the studio notice. I was shocked and amazed at how this transpired. Although we were refunded the already paid fees a week before that start of the new season, the studio owner still to this day refuses to release or authorize the use of scholarships my daughter rightfully earned for conventions and competitions. I have respectfully requested the release of all the scholarships my daughter earned, however, the studio owner refuses to answer emails, cal ls, texts, and has blocked all communications with us.
My daughter is continuing her dance journey elsewhere, but we are still postponed with signing up and registering with already planned conventions and competitions because the studio owner of IDA refuses to comunicate and officially release us from under the umbrella of IDA for independently earned scholarships and awards my daughter earned.
We are still waiting on a reply or any communication from this studio owner so that we may move forward with our daughter's dance career.....
If and when we recieve a reply from the studio owner, I will update this review.... Blessings and good luck dancers. read more
