This coming weekend, September 3-4, sees The Rye Dance Centre celebrate its 40th anniversary.
I regularly attend adult dance classes at the Rye Dance Centre and there were some particular moments that made me want to write a brief tribute to principal Joanne Fletcher and her team at this amazing little school.
The first occasion was seeing about 50 pairs of tiny tap shoes all lined up in the reception area. Tap shoes and indeed shoes for other dance genres are available for pupils to borrow-making dance lessons much more affordable the parents of aspiring young dancers.
Rye Dance Centre was founded in 1982 by Joanne Fletcher and is based in Cinque Ports Street.
You could say that dance is in Joanne’s DNA as she initially trained at her mother’s school of dance in Hastings before going on to complete her training at the centre and Deborah Capon. In addition to teaching at, and running her school, Joanne has achieved fellowship status in ISTD modern, tap and ballet. She is also an ISTD examiner across all three genres. More recently Jo has been appointed a member of the British and International Federation of Dance Adjudicators.
Another time when I came into the dance centre, several pupils of various ages were being fitted with a variety of brightly coloured costumes for a forthcoming performance. This was because in addition to offering classes for aspiring dancers aged six months to eighty something, pupils are also given the opportunity to take part in various productions and festivals. The photograph above shows Jo with some of her pupils outside the Albert Hall, where they had just performed.
Finally, I recently attended a dancercise class for which Jo had choreographed a small sequence to a tune from the musical Dream Girls. I looked at myself in the mirror and said to Jo. “You’ve got a good imagination!” Her immediate response was “you can be anything you want to be”. No wonder then that many of her former pupils have gone on to be professional dancers or to teach in the UK and abroad.
And for me it’s this very ethos of “you can be anything you want” that makes this wonderful little school so special.
Image Credits: Rye Dance Centre .