Dance Studio Moves from Floor and Beyond

When she started Dance 360 in Willow Grove in 2007, Tracy Latini had a floor and 27 students. 

“The floor was here,” Latini said. “And that was your biggest expense.”

Latini and her husband Tim, an Upper Moreland Primary School first-grade teacher who doubles as her office manager at times, are up to 2.5 rooms with an eye to expanding to 3.5 rooms next year.

Last year 215 students came through the doors to learn everything from lyrical, hip-hop, tap, ballet and more.

“It’s if you have a desire to dance,” Tracy Latini said of how people know if their children should pursue lessons, adding that the dancing bug can bite as young as 2 or as old as 13. “If they’re a mover.”

Latini, 32, has been a mover since she first began dancing at age 5. She’s been competing since age 8 and performed and choreographed for the DeSales Dance Company during her college career at DeSales University, where she graduated in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in dance. 

Tap is her favorite style, but Latini said some years she loves teaching lyrical best.

“It’s not even work,” she said.

The increasing popularity of television shows like “So You Think You Can Dance” help kids to foster the love of dance early and contribute to the growth of dance varieties seen readily on TV, she said.

“Hip-hop is everywhere,” Latini said.

For a group of tots Latini taught this summer–including the Latinis’ 2-year-old daughter Tessa–Disney’s fairy princesses had as much to do with their dancing as the youngsters’ love of moving. In Dance 360’s princess camp, girls ages 2 to 4 swayed to the music while donning dresses and tiaras similar to the ones their favorite princesses wear.

“For the younger ones, they don’t really know dance,” she said.

But, even at that age, the girls know how to twirl, to hug their baby and wave colorful ribbons while they move. The toddlers also know new Disney princesses like Sofia the First and recognize girls dressed in her purple dress as Nevaeh Brauer, 8, did on the dance camp’s last day.

“My mom picked out the dress,” Nevaeh said of her gown, which was similar to the one the character wears. “This is her wedding tiara.”

For the “more serious dancer,” instruction and practice requires about four to five hours a week and concludes with a recital at year’s end, Latini said.

“It’s a family commitment, I always say,” Latini said.

For Angie Flores, whose 4-year-old niece, Sammi Pflugfelder participated in the princess dance camp, it’s a commitment she said she wanted to make.

“I came and saw their show. The whole place was dancing,” Flores said, gesturing to her 3-year-old daughter, Mikki. “This one wanted to get up onstage.”

In the fall, Flores, of northeast Philadelphia, said she plans to let her do just that in ballet. She’s also considering enrolling her 9-year-old son in Dance 360’s hip-hop class, she said.

Proof positive that if you have a dance floor they will come.