District Dance is owned by a nit great private equity firm. Choose locally owned and operated.

Anonymous wrote:It was very poorly communicated when Ms. Catlett departed. Reflects poorly on the Board of Directors after she had dedicated so many years to MBT and helped the school grow and succeed.

Ms. Catlett was fired and the studio is keeping the reasons secret, which is why it may have seemed abrupt and not well-communicated. From my experience, she was incredibly mean and unstable, and would humiliate dancers and destroy girls' self-esteem. She regularly would say things like "you will never be a good dancer", angrily dismiss questions, played favorites and least-favorites very obviously, and would treat dancers at as young as 8 differently based on body shape & size. She is a terrible role model, especially given dozens of young girls looked up to her.

Furthermore, children of faculty, board members, and major donors were treated with more respect and given the lead roles every single time in their shows. These dancers would form cliques and leave all the other dancers out. The environment at the studio is incredibly competitive, which usually leads to a couple people thriving and everyone else doing poorly. The reason why they have very few people at the high school level is not just because those who are less serious about dance just stop, but primarily because they make 2 or 3 students repeat a level each year while all their friends move up, which causes them to end up leaving MBT out of embarrassment and fear of further isolation.

Although the training itself is not bad and I definitely learned a lot during my time there, I found that their way of assessing students' growth did not highlight unique ability and was very cookie cutter. Like if you didn't have your splits all the way down by 11 years old they practically would lose faith in you as a dancer.

They have a new artistic director that I know nothing about, though, so maybe things are different now. However, a couple other teachers that treat dancers poorly are still there. There are plenty of other dance studios nearby who treat students equally and with more compassion, while still providing pretty solid training.

Pick whatever is closest to you. If she loves dancing you may end up going there multiple times a week in a few years!

It was very poorly communicated when Ms. Catlett departed. Reflects poorly on the Board of Directors after she had dedicated so many years to MBT and helped the school grow and succeed.

Dance is expensive anywhere. Wasn’t crazy about district.

Anonymous wrote:Referring to “mean at MBT” - my daughter was a student there for many years. For the end of year celebration production, after my young daughter (6th grade) had attended every rehearsal, she was a little bit late arriving on the day of the actual performance - due to me getting the time wrong. The artistic director at the time “Catlett” would not let my daughter perform. This was an end of the year celebration. It was not a formal production. My daughter was in tears. It was absolutely the most awful experience. We never went back.

She’s no longer at MBT. Her departure from MBT this year was abrupt and without much explanation.

Referring to “mean at MBT” - my daughter was a student there for many years. For the end of year celebration production, after my young daughter (6th grade) had attended every rehearsal, she was a little bit late arriving on the day of the actual performance - due to me getting the time wrong. The artistic director at the time “Catlett” would not let my daughter perform. This was an end of the year celebration. It was not a formal production. My daughter was in tears. It was absolutely the most awful experience. We never went back.