WhoWeAre

Work + Rest + Play

PLAY – The Dance Company acknowledges the traditional Aboriginal custodians of Canberra and celebrate their ongoing culture and contribution to the ACT and region. We also acknowledge that many other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from across Australia have now made Canberra their home and we also acknowledge and celebrate their cultures and diversity and their contribution to the ACT and region.

Always was, Always Will be, Aboriginal Land.

Dance should be fun and dance class should be the best part of your day. It is for us, and we can’t wait to show you what we are all about. Established in 2011 PLAY is the leader in the Canberra Dance Community in competitive Hip Hop, Jazz, Lyrical dance styles and Talent Management. We take enrolments in January and June each year and look forward to meeting you soon.

What makes us so different?

At PLAY we have our own way of doing things. We have gained a lot of experience over the years and strive to think of new ways to improve our studio constantly.

Here are the 4 main things that set us apart:

We are boutique and keep our studio capped at 250 students.

This gives us the ability to have a real “family” atmosphere and strive to build relationships with our studio families that nurture the students development not just as dancers but as people. Our school programs during the day reach over 1,000 students per week but at PLAY we maintain a very strict number limit. There is always a waiting list and classes fill very quickly each semester.

Enrolments are also open only 2 times per year. This ensures students aren’t disrupted by new students coming and going each week and maintains our high quality of classes.

We have an open door policy.

As far as I know we are the only dance studio in the whole world that thinks this way but, we actually LIKE our parents watching classes!

Although it is not compulsory we find it beneficial to both students and their parents to have them in there watching their development and encouraging their growth at home. We feel that shutting parents out of a dance studio is counter productive. We encourage parents to listen to feedback, film the routines and get to know the instructors so they can play an active role in their childs improvement as a dancer. However, we know parents are also very busy so being there every lesson is definitely not required but popping your head in when you can is definitely encouraged.

We have the perfect balance of hard work and fun.

Our students know that outside the classroom we are family. But in the classroom, it is a class and focus and commitment is required. Parents expect results and we expect our students to work hard. And they do – because they enjoy it and can see the results immediately. We encourage practice at home from the very beginning and love having the parents’ support in this. Each class moves very quickly so keeping up with practice at home is important.

We do two concerts per year.

We do a mid year show and an end of year show that all students are involved in. This gives the students something short term to work towards and gives parents an opportunity to see their development each semester rather than waiting until the year is done.

The show is held at the Canberra Theatre Centre, Canberra City in June and December each year and is an amazing showcase and celebration of the students achievements each semester.

Shop our look!

We have an online store for you to “shop our look” which gets updated frequently with the latest PLAY seasonal merchandise.