Iowa Dance Collective to perform Winter Showcase at arts center

FAIRFIELD – Iowa Dance Collective is moving into the big time.

The dance studio on the south side of the Fairfield square is only two years old this month, and it’s already grown by leaps and bounds. The studio is planning its 2023 Winter Showcase for Saturday, Dec. 9, and this will be the studio’s first time holding a performance at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center.

The show will start at 6 p.m. and last about 90 minutes, featuring performers ranging in age from toddlers to teens and beyond. The performers will show off their skills in ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, lyrical, contemporary and acro (acrobatics). Attendees will also see performances from the studio’s acting and improv classes. Tickets are $15, general admission.

Iowa Dance Collective founder and director Tyler Malone said that holding this weekend’s Winter Showcase at the arts center represents a big step up, and shows the high demand from the public who want to attend these performances. The studio’s last performance was the musical Peter Pan in May, and that was held at Spayde Theatre on the campus of Maharishi International University.

“We sold out our spring performance at Spayde, and had over 100 people on a waiting list,” Malone said. “I said, ‘I guess we have to use the big theater now.’”

Participation numbers at Iowa Dance Collective have skyrocketed, too. Malone started the business in December 2021 in the former Orpheum Theater on West Broadway Avenue.

“When we started classes that January, I was teaching every class, and we had between 20-30 kids,” Malone recalls.

IDC had to move into a larger space within the Orpheum, but soon even that new space was not enough, and in March of 2023 the business moved into its current location on the south side square. Malone hired two dance teachers, Jamie Blomme and Chloe Johnson, plus two acting teachers, Phoenix Haessler and Solomon Davis. The studio also launched a separate fitness division called FITCO at IDC, which has its own staff of five and more than 60 clients.

Today, IDC has between 160-170 clients, with classes offered every day of the week. Malone said he’s planning to expand his list of classes even further next fall, offering certain classes to younger kids that are now reserved for older ones. It also offers separate classes in the summer, which have proven to be highly popular, with about 70 kids participating in each of the four weeks it was offered last summer through a partnership with Maharishi School.

“When you open a business, you hope for the best but you never really know,” Malone said. “I’d never lived in a small town before, but I did all the research and hoped it would work. We’ve just found that little pocket of what was missing for this community, and I’m so grateful for how supportive the whole community has been.”

  Buy Photo

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com

  Buy Photo