Meet Michelle Osborne and Michelle Zada | Dance Up Dallas Summer Intensive Co Founders

We had the good fortune of connecting with Michelle Osborne and Michelle Zada and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Michelle Osborne and Michelle Zada, Let’s talk about principles and values – what matters to you most?
For us, we believe that hard work pays off and people will always remember your work ethic. This value for us shows itself in many ways. Hard work for Dance Up Dallas is arriving early and warming up to be ready and prepared for class, staying after class to go over notes and choreography, researching choreographers and movement aesthetics and assisting classmates with movement vocabulary. Your reputation always follows you, and we want our dancers to be resilient and respectable young adults that are able to navigate life, utilizing these tools within class, as well as in the outside world.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Michelle & Michelle both have a BFA in Dance and extensive training in Ballet, various Modern techniques such as Horton, Graham and Dunham, Composition and Improvisation and many more. During our professional dance careers, we both had the pleasure of being highlighted and recognized in solo performances with multiple professional dance companies and have toured extensively throughout the United States and internationally. We have studied and worked with countless Modern dance icons and esteemed choreographers who have poured into us, and we highly value all the information we have obtained from the masters. Additionally we value the history and evolution of dance and believe that strong discipline creates amazing dancers and human beings.

Both Michelle’s have transitioned from performing to teaching and while sharing best teaching practices we noticed a small void for summer dance intensive’s encompassing everything that we had to offer from our combined dance experiences.

We put our resources together, created a mission and collaborated with Kitty Carter for studio space. We then hired additional highly qualified faculty from the Dallas dance community to teach other dance disciplines and established Dance Up Dallas Summer Dance Intensive during the summer of 2018.

Dance Up Dallas is a two week summer dance intensive that immerses students ages 8 to adult in a core curriculum of Ballet, Horton, Tap, Jazz, Contemporary, Hip Hop, Yoga, Pilates and Strength & Conditioning. The program is designed to focus on accuracy, alignment, speed, precision and proper etiquette, all while developing individual artistic expression. Dance Up Dallas faculty are all incredibly passionate educators that believe in tough love and building up confident dancers with strong character. We instill the discipline that prepares our students to be competitive artists in today’s dance world.

The main challenge we have faced is standing out as an elite and rigorous program amongst the numerous studios that hold intensives throughout the summer. Summer intensive programs generally overlap, therefore finding the perfect dates with the least conflicts can be challenging. In addition, most dancers are attached at their home studios or are out of state.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
The M&Ms (Michelle & Michelle) are the best of friends and when you get us together you’re in for the best time of your life! Every moment will be filled with spontaneity, laughs, little creative songs and dances, partner workouts, pool time, costumes, face paint and possibly a kickball game or quick to Austin to tube down the Guadalupe River! For us, it’s not necessarily about being at the local hotspot, but more so about making the most out of our time together while being surrounded by other amazing friends! We’ve been successful as business partners because we mesh so well and love doing everything together! On top of our fun filled moments, we love to experiment in the kitchen by cooking healthy meals together! Maybe our next venture will be creating an M&M cookbook!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Kitty and Keith Carter, owners of Kitty Carter Dance Factory, hands down have made Dance Up Dallas possible from every angle. We are so appreciative of their friendship, generosity, help and support. The have helped by providing us a platform to make Dance Up Dallas possible.

We are also grateful for our incredible teachers, students and their families who help with spreading the word about our intensive and return year after year.

Website: www.danceupdallas.com

Instagram: danceupdallas

Facebook: Dance Up Dallas

Image Credits
Sharon Bradford Vincent Hardy