BWW Featured Dance Studio: STEPS ON BROADWAY

BWW Dance World, a spinoff site of BroadwayWorld.com, is excited to announce the addition of a new feature to its comprehensive coverage -- the Featured Dance Studio! We will feature studios in New York City as well as studios located in one of our over 130 coverage cities.

Our first featured studio is STEPS OF BROADWAY in New York City.

From a humble beginning in 1979 when Carol Paumgarten, the Artistic Director of Steps on Broadway with her then partner Patrice Soriero opened for business in a small space on 56th and Broadway in NYC, Steps has burgeoned into a bustling, internationally acclaimed dance studio boasting top teachers and a huge clientele that ranges from pre-schoolers to leading professional dancers.

After a brief period at 1845 Broadway between 60th and 61st, the former location of Melissa Hayden's school, Steps moved in 1981 to the current location at 75th and Broadway. In 1994, Diane Grumet joined the administrative team as Co-Artistic Director/Managing Director. As of 2017, Steps not only offers classes seven days a week in an impressive roster of disciplines and hosts groups from all over the world but is also home to a Work/Study Program, The School at Steps under the direction of Kate Thomas, and the Steps Beyond Foundation that offers performances and special events under the Artistic Direction of Grumet.

Steps is an impressive facility with eleven studios, men's and women's dressing rooms and showers, and The Barre Café. One of the studios can be converted into an intimate theater. All of the studios have sprung floors, mirrors, and climate control.

If you decide to take class at Steps, you can buy classes on line and then choose from possibilities including Ballet, Pointe, Contemporary, Jazz, Street/Hip Hop, Stretch and Strength Techniques, Tap, Theater Dance/Theater Jazz, Tango, Flamenco, Bollywood, Afro-Brazilian, Modern, Morning Fit, Voice Audition Prep, and Acting for Dancers. If you've never danced or if you're coming back as an adult after studying as a youngster, check out the Ultimate Intro Adult Dance Workshops. Also, if you're a recreational dancer with a day job, go on in and strut your stuff right along with the advanced and professional dancers. You won't be the only one! Simply follow class traffic rules and you'll be just fine. You can even drop out of a particularly challenging center combination and just hang back to watch the other dancers who might be members of the New York City Ballet taking Nancy Bielski's class or current Broadway dancers in jazz, tap, and theater dance classes or modern dancers from Alvin Ailey.

When you get to the studio, you'll check in at the desk on the 3rd floor and then head to a dressing room down a hallway that is always packed with dance luminaries and hopefuls alike milling around, stretching, massaging sore muscles, coaxing long tresses into French twists, sipping bottled water, and exchanging bits of industry gossip. You might hear the sound of Gershwin or maybe a hip hop track coming from one studio mingling with the strains of Chopin emanating from yet another studio and played live by a superb accompanist. Steps is a sensory experience from the minute you walk in the door!

Visit the Steps web site, https://www.stepsnyc.com/, to find the Online Store, as well as travel directions, regular class schedules, master class series, workshops, professional training programs, summer intensives, Work/Study, group visits, and the International Independent Study Program with Dance Focus or Dance/Pilates Certification Focus. You can also access details about The School at Steps, which is for ages 18 months to 18 years, and the Steps Beyond Foundation.

Steps on Broadway, in the epicenter of the Dance Mecca of the World, is not to be missed. Whether you're new to NYC, a longtime resident, or a seasonal visitor, you'll be glad you made your way over to the studio that started small but in the ensuing decades has become a magnet for the multitudes who want to make their dancing dreams come true for pure pleasure or for professional careers. So pack up your dancing shoes and join the throng at Steps!

Watch Steps Conservatory Program student Svetlana's story below!