Sunday, April 20, 2025

At Tremaine Dance Conventions & Competitions, “Dance Coaching Is Life Coaching” 

Tremaine Dance Conventions & Competitions began as a dream: A dream to share the recent, new coaching strategies and materials being taught in main cities like Los Angeles and New York with dance college students all through the nation. President and co-founder Dr. Joe Tremaine (who obtained an honorary doctorate from The College of Arizona) has an extended historical past of working with the perfect within the enterprise—as a dancer, a choreographer, and an educator. (He’s labored with a star-studded record of entertainers, together with Paula Abdul, Gregory Hines, Gene Kelly, and Barbara Streisand, to call just a few.) Within the Nineteen Seventies, Tremaine opened the Joe Tremaine Dance Heart in Los Angeles, and in 1981, he determined to develop his dedication to top-notch coaching. Tremaine threw a report participant in his automobile and hit the street, fulfilling his dream of delivering new courses, instructors, and concepts across the nation—offering larger entry in a pre-internet period and setting most of the requirements within the conference business that younger artists know and love in the present day.

Now in its forty fourth season, Tremaine Dance Conventions & Competitions is way larger than a one-man present: With a roster of acclaimed college, a 26-city tour every year, and a big following of dancers nationwide, Tremaine continues to construct on its legacy of being an influential voice in dance schooling in the present day.

Tremaine Is for Life

Govt producer Terry Lindholm first met Tremaine as a younger dancer. He attended a Tremaine conference and was awarded a scholarship to coach on the Joe Tremaine Dance Heart. Quickly after, Lindholm joined the Tremaine conference college and taught for over a decade. He additionally had a efficiency profession working with the likes of Reba McEntire and within the movie Newsies, in addition to three appearances on the Oscars earlier than opening his personal expertise company. Having remained near Tremaine over time, Lindholm returned to the group as its government producer in the course of the pandemic.

“This can be a household at Tremaine,” says Lindholm. “It’s at all times been a terrific basis of help.” As he’s transitioned from scholar to performer to trainer to producer, Lindholm has constructed an unlimited community made up of the folks he’s met alongside the best way. “Constructing an expert profession is all about relationships,” he says—and Tremaine relationships are for all times.

In actual fact, most of the group’s college members grew up coaching at Tremaine: Industrial dancer Tiffany Maher was Tremaine’s 2004 Teen Dancer of the 12 months; Keri LaGrand, Tremaine Efficiency Firm director, studied on the Joe Tremaine Dance Heart; and Emmy-winning choreographer Josh Bergasse, who joined the college this 12 months, attended Tremaine competitions and conventions yearly together with his mother, who grew up coaching with Tremaine co-founder Julie Adler.

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, TERRY LINDHOLM. PHOTO BY NICOLE SMARTT, COURTESY TREMAINE.

Core Values

Forty-four years in the past, Tremaine based his group with the philosophy “Dance coaching is life coaching,” a motto that’s nonetheless the guts of Tremaine in the present day. Past method, dancers are inspired to push themselves and take dangers throughout conventions and competitions. They’re given alternatives to experiment and be impressed by the dancers round them. And Tremaine’s competitors permits younger dancers to study the dear lesson of fail graciously because it solely awards first via fourth place, understanding that there’s worth within the course of—not simply in profitable.

Tremaine understands that many dancers who attend the conventions aren’t going to pursue dance professionally, however the group believes that the teachings they study via dance will profit them in no matter path they select. Lindholm is a transparent instance of this, happening to be a profitable agent after finding out and performing for years. Different former Tremaine dancers have gone on to turn out to be attorneys, administrators, actors, and extra, together with Emmy-winning make-up artist Tym Buacharern, Step Up actress Jenna Dewan, and director Anne Fletcher. 

Past dance courses, Tremaine has boards and Q&A classes for folks, lecturers, and college students on matters like getting into the skilled world, going to varsity, and utilizing social media correctly. Lecturers give again by sharing business suggestions to assist dancers take their subsequent steps of their coaching and careers.

SENIOR DANCER OF THE YEAR, CAMERON JANSON. PHOTO BY NICOLE SMARTT, COURTESY TREMAINE.

New Faces

This season, Tremaine added to its various roster of school with newcomers from a wide range of kinds, together with Bergasse, who choreographed Broadway’s SmashRhonda Miller, who’s the creator and former director of the BFA business dance program at Tempo College and is the present director of the brand new Tremaine Dance / Rhonda Miller Industrial Dance Coaching Program primarily based in Los Angeles; and “So You Suppose You Can Dance” Season 6 star Jakob Karr. In choose cities, dancers can leap and switch with Broadway’s Depraved forged member Matthew Deloch, groove with Jawkeen Howard from Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour, grasp new strategies with Cyrus “Glitch” Spencer of “SYTYCD,” cha-cha with “Dancing with the Stars” professional Emma Slater, and study extra new kinds from professional instructors.

However at Tremaine, it’s about extra than simply bringing in big-name choreographers and dancers. All college are established educators with a ardour for connecting with the scholars. “They do a very good job of getting down on the ground to see and work together with the dancers,” says Lindholm. The school depart dancers feeling impressed to go dwelling and work more durable—in any self-discipline they select—thereby persevering with Tremaine’s 44-year legacy of training the subsequent era of leaders.

To bop with Tremaine this summer time or in the course of the upcoming forty fifth season, click on right here.

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