Children's Classes
The Ambo Dance Theatre School
2024-2025 Dance School Year!
Registration and Enrollment are available on a rolling basis!
The Ambo Dance Theatre School
2024-2025 Dance School Year
Fall Semester: August 12, 2024 - December 20, 2024
Spring Semester: January 6, 2025 - June 15, 2025
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We offer rolling enrollment and this year, we are offering more exciting opportunities to our families and students than ever before! We look forward to providing you with a full year of performances, social events, and extracurricular opportunities, as well as continuing to provide a variety of classes for students ages 3+!
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Learn more by visiting our registration link above!​
Our History
In January of 2023, Ambo Dance Theatre merged with the Louisville Contemporary Dance School in order to unify their vision of creating more equitable access to a holistic Dance Education, as well as building more clear pathways for participating in the professional concert dance world in Louisville!​
The Ambo Dance Theatre School provides leveled classes for all ages that foster creativity and competence in choreography, alongside body awareness and technical proficiency that is developmentally appropriate.
Our dance school is versed in the foundational benefits of mindfulness practices that support physical conditioning through proper body mechanics, and technique; as well as developing creative movement dance skills, improvisation and choreographic skills and experiences. We introduce students to the history, music and language of differing dance styles, and develop physical strength, flexibility and dance skill in accordance with each student’s growth. The dance school program sets a strong foundation for students who also want to continue into the pre-professional or professional company, and for anyone who wants to work towards professional-level training.
Our Teaching Philosophy
Our Teaching Philosophy
Our dance school is versed in the foundational benefits of mindfulness practices that support physical conditioning through proper body mechanics, and technique; as well as developing creative movement dance skills, improvisation and choreographic skills and experiences. We introduce students to the history, music and language of differing dance styles, and develop physical strength, flexibility and dance skill in accordance with each student’s growth. The dance school program sets a strong foundation for students who also want to continue into the pre-professional or professional company, and for anyone who wants to work towards professional-level training.
Weekly Drop-In Class Schedule
Sundays
12:00pm-1:00pm Strengthening and Flexibility (adult/teen)
1:00pm-2:00pm Intermediate/ Advanced Modern Technique (adult)
Mondays
5:30pm-6:30pm Open Level Contemporary/Modern Technique (adult)
Tuesdays
5:30pm-6:30pm Open Level Jazz (adult/teen)
6:30pm-7:30pm Open Level Contemporary Ballet (adult/teen)
Wednesdays
5:30pm-6:30pm Beginning Tap (any age)
6:30pm-7:30pm Beginning Modern (adult/teen)
6:30pm-7:30pm Intermediate Tap (any age)
Fridays
5:00pm-6:00pm Partnering (adult/teen)
6:00pm-7:00pm Improvisation (adult/teen)
Flexibility and Strengthening
Sundays @ 12pm
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This class promotes functional strength, fitness, and wellness for all bodies, but especially catered to the dancing body. Exercises focus on proper alignment and kinesthetic awareness to create balance throughout the body and reduce the risk of injury, ultimately providing the necessary tools to increase endurance, range of motion, and overall physical performance.
For adults and teens.
All experience levels welcome!
All equipment provided!​​​
Open Level Contemporary Ballet
Tuesdays @ 6:30pm
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Blending classical technique with modern movement, the class focuses on artistry, fluidity, and self-expression. Whether you're refining your skills or exploring ballet for the first time, this class offers a welcoming space to grow and move with grace.
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For adults and teens.
Some movement experience recommended!
Belly Dance
Thursdays @ 6pm
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Belly dance is a captivating and empowering art form that celebrates fluidity, strength, and self-expression. Rooted in Middle Eastern traditions, this class focuses on isolations, undulations, and rhythmic movements of the torso and hips, enhancing core strength and body awareness. With an emphasis on musicality and graceful technique, students will learn fundamental movements, intricate combinations, and the cultural significance behind this mesmerizing dance style.
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For adults and teens.
All experience levels welcome!
Int/Adv
Modern
Technique
Sundays @ 1pm
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Explore modern dance elements, such as contraction and release, fall and recovery, initiation points and kinetic chains through the body, and use of the spine in movement. This class typically starts on the floor with Laban/Bartenieff-based exercises and gradually builds to standing and moving across the floor.
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For adults and teens.
Significant prior movement experience recommended.
Layers are recommended.​​​
Beginning Tap Dance
Wednesdays @ 5:30pm
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An introductory rhythm tap class focused on building your fundamental tap vocabulary. Combinations focus on reinforcing foundational movements, while also introducing rhythmic intricacy, musicality, and layering of steps. ​
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For adults and teens.
All experience levels welcome!
Tap shoes required.
Dance
Partnering
Fridays @ 5pm
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This class will explore different strategies and partnering techniques rooted in contact improvisation and gender-neutral non-traditional partnering. Participants will learn to use their body weight and skeletal structure strategically to build lifts and partnered weight sharing that they can then apply broadly through structured improvisational exercises and movement phrases.
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For adults and teens.
Some prior movement experience recommended.
Come solo or bring a partner!
Open Level Contemporary/Modern Technique
Mondays @ 5:30pm
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Rooted in modern dance, this class integrates technical elements from ballet and jazz to open up your movement repertory. Exercises typically begin on the floor and work their way to standing, emphasizing body awareness and proper engagement and alignment.
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For adults and teens.
Some movement experience recommended.​​​
Beginning Modern Technique
Wednesdays @ 6:30pm
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An introductory modern dance class designed to introduce the body to Laban-Bartenieff-based movement pathways. This gentle class focuses on building strong modern dance foundations in order to expand your range of motion, spatial awareness, and muscular integration.
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For adults and teens.
All experience levels welcome!​​​​​
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Dance Improvisation
Fridays @ 6pm
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Much like actors can improvise a scene together, so can dancers collectively improvise a dance that looks choreographed right on the spot! This class places an emphasis on group compositional improvisation. Through games, activities, and scores, we'll learn strategies for connecting as an ensemble, building and structuring dance extemporaneously, and treating improvisation as performance.
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For adults and teens.
All experience levels welcome!
Open Level Jazz
Tuesdays @ 5:30pm
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Jazz dance is a high-energy and expressive style that combines sharp, dynamic movements with smooth, fluid transitions. Rooted in rhythm and musicality, jazz incorporates elements of traditional technique alongside modern influences, making it versatile and ever-evolving. Classes typically focus on building strength, flexibility, coordination, and performance skills through exercises, across-the-floor sequences, and vibrant choreography.
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For adults and teens.
Some movement experience recommended!
Intermediate Tap Dance
Wednesdays @ 6:30pm
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Building off of fundamental tap movement vocabulary, this class integrates more complex steps such as pullbacks, wings, and riffs in order to introduce more complex musicality, syncopation, and rhythmic understanding. This class also explores improvisation techniques and layered rhythms to introduce more nuanced choreographic structures.
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For adults and teens.
Prior tap experience required.
Tap shoes required.
Course Descriptions
All our children's classes integrate Creative Movement practices within our technical training so that we can develop the artist as well as the dancer!
Ballet
Ballet is a theatrical dance that features highly formalized steps and movements. It uses body movements, music, and stage scenery to speak emotions, a story, an atmosphere, or a theme. It is theatrical – performed on a stage to an audience utilizing costumes, scenic design and lighting. It can tell a story or express a thought, concept or emotion. Ballet dance can be magical, exciting, provoking or disturbing.
Ballet flats, leotard, and tights (skin tone or pink) required.
Level placement determined by instructors.
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Jazz
Jazz dance is a form of dance that combines both African and European dance styles. This high-energy dance has a liveliness that sets it apart from traditional dance forms, such as classical ballet. Like jazz music, jazz dance features improvisation.
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Jazz shoes required.
Level placement determined by instructors.
Hip Hop
Hip-hop dance is a vibrant form of dance that combines a variety of freestyle movements to create a cultural piece of art. Through its three main styles of popping, locking, and breaking, hip-hop dance has evolved into one of the most popular and influential styles of dance.
Hip Hop Dance is a style of movement characterized by bounces and rocks, executed to Hip Hop music. It has deep historical and social roots in African American culture, having emerged in Black communities living in 1970s New York, as well as other cities around the USA among multiple racial backgrounds. While frequently referred to as a singular dance style, Hip Hop dance is part of a whole culture of Hip Hop, that includes Deejaying, Graffiti, Emceeing, and Breaking.
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Street shoes required.
Level placement determined by instructors.
Creative Movement
Creative Movement is designed to expand dance related motor, musical, and performance skills. Creative Movement develops coordination and self-expression through dance and music skills that are introduced, explored, and developed. This class uses a wide variety of music, props, and balancing techniques.
Modern
Modern Dance is the core dance style of the Ambo Dance Theatre Company! Started as a rebellion against the rigid theatrical and performative norms of ballet, modern dance explores the use of diverse points throughout the body to initiate movement, placing emphasis on the spine, and the head-tail connection. In this style, you'll find integrations of floor work, contraction and release, fall and recovery, and personal expression of movement within proper alignment.
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Bare feet required.
Level placement determined by instructors.
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Tap
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely performed in musical theater. Tap is believed to have first originated in the U.S. from African and Irish slaves observing each other's dances on Southern plantations in the 19th century.
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Tap shoes required.
Level placement determined by instructors.
Enroll in Classes!
Email Sheila Zeng at sheila@ambodancetheatre.org for placement in classes that align with your child's availability, interests, and level!
Class Rates
Ambo utilizes all-inclusive model within our tuition structures! This means no extra fees - what you pay every month is the same from month to month, and you will never pay more than this unless you opt to take on additional opportunities. This also means no extra burdens on families. No more running around to find shoes, tights, etc. when your child outgrows them. We provide it all!
Your Tuition Includes:
tuition for your weekly classes
shoes for class and performances
a leotard and two pairs of flesh-tone tights
production fees for all performances
costumes for all performances
a copy of the photos and video of all performances and productions
Non-Performing Classes
1 class/week
$75
per month
Performing Classes
1 class/week
$100
per month
Performing Classes
2 classes/week
$180
per month
Performing Classes
3 classes/week
$255
per month