My daughter has attended New Century Dance for around 4 years and this review will be a mixture of both her experiences as a student and mine as a parent.
1) Classes are increasingly going back to in-person and although all students wear masks (and will be provided with one if not), there is no social distancing protocol
- Students will be very close together at times
- During an online dance competition, students did not wear masks while recording all pieces
- Even when the county is in purple tier, advanced students will be expected to go to in-person (especially for competitive team classes)
- As of recently, it is required to get COVID tested if student want to be in person
- Upon entry Lu Lao Shi (the main teacher) will take student's and faculty's temperature
- Equipment is sanitized and hand sanitizer is available
2) There is a lack of planning and communication between the school and parents
- Often Lu Lao Shi will expect parents to drive students to school on demand or expect students to show up to new classes with very little notice
- Competition dates will not be announced until a few months before
- Families are expected to put dance first and everything else second (i.e. missing recitals, events, and tests for a dance event)
3) Lu Lao Shi often demeans her students and lowers their self esteem
- I have witnessed Lu Lao Shi telling students as young as 7 that they are fat and should eat less
- Students are expected to fit in the body type of professional dancers and students who don't are shamed in front of the whole class
- Teens with developing bodies are told to lose up to 10-15 pounds and threatened that if they didn't they would not be able to have private lessons
4) Lu Lao Shi speaks in mainly mandarin and most of the students are of Chinese heritage
- Lu Lao Shi can speak English but typically uses very little and only for her non-mandarin speaking students
- Ms. Jocelyn Lu, Ms. Asia Bui, and most of the other teachers can speak english fluently and is their primary language in class
5) Class time is wasted with long lectures (regularly 30+ minutes and waste valuable class time)
- This is only in Lu Lao Shi's classes, where when I have sat in on my daughter's online lessons noticed that she would talk continuously about things unrelated to the class
- These spiels can be centered around specific students and their flaws and Lu Lao Shi embarrasses them (sometimes to the point of tears)
- Technique classes will start 5 minutes late and end 10 minutes late on a regular basis
6) Students are accelerated due to their race, body type, or height
- As touched upon before, many students are put into a more advanced class or being given more opportunities because of things they cannot control
- Older students attend most classes based on height and students of the same age but of differing height don't get the same opportunities to improve
- Students with the more ideal "ballet body" will be given solos and will be given more attention compared to everyone else
- Most of the Non-Chinese or biracial students will be "showcased" to show the "diversity" on the school's social media and will also get more attention
7) Students with better financial support and who can afford multiple sets of dance clothes/hair supplies will be preferred and Lu Lao Shi will expect all students to be that way
- I've witnessed a student with only one pair of leotard or tights get mocked by Lu Lao Shi in front of the class
- Advanced students are also expected to be able to spend $100+ on new pointe shoes every 2-3 months
8) Most of the teachers are encouraging, supportive and helpful
- Lu Lao Shi has good intentions and as mentioned in previous reviews, truly does want to push students as much as she can. However, since she was brought up in a professional and outdated environment, many of her views and teaching methods harm students more than help
- Ms. Jocelyn Lu is trained in both classical Chinese dance and ballet and is a patient teacher who helps students grow their technique. Often times I find my daughter learns more from Ms. Lu than Lu Lao Shi herself. Unfortunately, Ms. Lu only teaches the competitive team dance classes and not the usual technique classes.
- Ms. Asia Bui, a professional ballet dancer with the Sarasota Ballet, was only a regular teacher for about 3 months before teaching exclusively adult classes. In this short time, her teaching style was much more laid-back than Lu Lao Shi but also helped my daughter with her basic ballet technique.
All in all, the studio has helped my daughter grow as a dancer, but also helped contribute to her low self confidence and her self consciousness (comparing herself with other dancers in her class). The first step towards making this studio better would definitely start with Lu Lao Shi fixing some of the things noted on this review. read more
