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Dance Conservatory of Southern Minnesota

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Welcome to Dance Conservatory!

 

No matter your age or the dance style you prefer, you're sure to find the perfect class at Dance Conservatory of Southern Minnesota to enhance your dancing skills and have fun!

 

Dance Conservatory is a non-profit, non-discriminatory organization run by a voluntary board of directors and is dedicated to the teaching and promotion of dance as an art form. Established by June Sharits in 1984, we are a family-values oriented studio. Our music, costumes, and choreography are all age appropriate according to the class in which your child is registered.

 

We currently have studios in Mankato and New Ulm. We also offer dance classes in St Peter through their community education program.

Dance Safety

Dance Conservatory features 3 full size dance rooms with sprung floors. A sprung floor is a floor that absorbs shocks, giving it a softer feel. Such floors are considered the best available for dance and indoor sports and physical education. They enhance performance and greatly reduce injuries.   Dancing on a dance specific sprung floor is essential to protect the growing bodies of young dancers from lifelong injuries.

 

While no movement activity is without risk, the type of surface you are moving on can help reduce the risks.  Dance creates impact energy.  If the energy generated by dance is returned to the body it can result in shin splints, fractures, and an array of knee problems, tendonitis, and ankle sprains. A dance floor that is both impact absorbent and provides lateral foot support is essential.  

 

Safety for a dancers body with the stability and responsiveness of the performance surface are the necessities we incorporate into each of our sprung dance floors. While learning, rehearsing or performing, impact forces imparted to the floor by dancers from their jumps, leaps, stomps and general repetitive contact are very large. The floor must have the ability to absorb a portion of these forces, without making it feel too soft or unstable causing dancers to overwork themselves. If the floor does not absorb these forces sufficiently the excess energies are largely returned to dancers bodies through their feet, legs, joints, tendon, etc., with the potential of causing discomfort or even great harm. This can lead to a range of dance injuries that spans dancing “hurt”, to those that can end a career. Guided by the importance we place on “Safety in Performance” for dancers of all genres of dance, Dance Conservatory’s floors are designed to prevent injuries and counter fatigue, enabling more energetic training and performances.

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