Word on the Street: The Dance Studio of Fresno named 2015 Studio of the Year

There were more than 175 studios at this year’s The Dance Awards in Las Vegas, but the Dance Studio of Fresno walked away with the honor of dance studio of the year.

Owner Sue Sampson-Dalena first opened the studio 33 years ago on the northeast corner of Blackstone and Herndon avenues, with about 40 students. In 2000, she bought land and built a 14,000-square-foot building at 7491 N. Palm Bluffs Ave. The new studio has seven dance rooms and more than a thousand students, she said.

Sampson-Dalena was born and raised in Fresno and took ballet and tap dancing classes as she grew up. She began teaching dance for her mentor Jimmy Powell’s studio when she was 16, and spent about five years teaching there before she opened her own studio.

The Dance Studio of Fresno entered the The Dance Awards, sponsored by Break the Floor Productions and running June 26 to July 3, by attending Break the Floor’s Nuvo Dance Convention.

After qualifying for the competition, she said the studio had to demonstrate student proficiency at two levels, in children 12 and under and in teens 13 to 18, in five dance disciplines (ballet, tap, jazz, musical theater and contemporary or lyrical) by submitting 10 pieces. The pieces were danced and scored to decide which studios would make the top five.

A dance-off between the five studios then followed. Dancers would again perform the submitted 10 pieces in a short period of time.

In addition to the Studio of the Year award, there were also awards for the best genre. The Dance Studio of Fresno placed top in both ballet and tap out of all of the studios, Sampson-Dalena said.

Sampson-Dalena attributes their success to her student’s work ethic, as they trained six to seven days a week.

“In order to look this good, you can’t just rehearse your numbers,” she said. “You have to become really good dancers.”

It was grueling work, she said. And the $25,000 prize money received will be divided up and given back to the students, as they’re the ones who earned it, she said. Her students practiced so hard they probably spent more time with her than at home, she added.

“It’s easier to be really good at one thing, and to focus on one thing,” she said. “What these young people did…they had to be good at five or six different things. And that’s really difficult and very rare.”

More info about the studio is at www.fresnodanceonline.com.

This story was originally published July 23, 2015 at 1:24 PM with the headline "Word on the Street: The Dance Studio of Fresno named 2015 Studio of the Year."