Premier's New Digs

For the past month I've barely gone near a computer. I've been at our new studio everyday, all day, preparing for the return of our dancers - except, unlike 22 years ago when we started Premier, this time I have to work around COVID, riots (believe it or not the riots affected Premier's move - I'll explain in a bit) and whatever else life decided to throw my way. It's been an ordeal, to say the least. If you're up for a bit of a story, I'll share my journey with you here.

Our new space was a dance studio before we moved in... but it sat empty for two years. So, at face value it seemed like the perfect move - there couldn't possibly be much work to do since it was already a dance studio, right? Ha! There were holes in the walls from where the mirrors had been - and yes, I knew that when I decided to move, but it was still more work than I had bargained for. And if you've ever seen a toilet that hasn't been used in 2 years, you know that it gets rusty and stained. There were ceiling tiles missing, doors that had locks with no keys, outlets that don't work and light switches that don't seem to turn on anything! Everything needed to be repainted, and I mean EVERYTHING! The previous dance studio was painted brown, navy blue and dark gray. It was sad and gloomy, and I am definitely not a sad and gloomy kind of girl. Now, I'm not saying the other dance studio (the business) is sad and gloomy, but their space was for sure! I'm happy to report that the new Premier is blue/gray and bright blue. No more doom and gloom!

I mentioned earlier that the riots affected us. Here's the skinny on that one: Due to the riots and all the broken windows downtown, every glass company in Madison is booked solid for 4-6 weeks. And to top it off, nobody even wanted to talk about moving mirrors - it's not a job they like doing (it's dangerous and it's costly), so I've been practically begging companies to put us on their schedule. I finally found a company from out of town that is willing to move our mirrors. They actually told me "we don't want to do this job, but we know you're in a bind". Ugh! So, you can imagine what my bill will look like! And to top it off, they can't move the mirrors until Wednesday of next week. So, that's two dance days without mirrors and our first day of Wednesday daytime classes will need to be postponed. But, as I just said, I'm not a gloomy person, so I'm looking at the bright side; we'll have mirrors by Wednesday (assuming they don't break them all!).

And, of course, there's COVID to deal with. The floor had to be taped with socially distanced squares, the barres had to be taped at six foot intervals so we can warm up at the barre without being too close, we installed hand sanitizer dispensers outside of each dance room, as well as our usual hand sanitizer in the room, and socially distance markings on the floor in the lobby. At the same time, we need to have our dance rooms set up for our online dancers so they can see the instructor and hear the music during class. It may take a few days to get it running smoothly, but we'll get there! All of these things would have been needed at the old studio too, but it just made the move even more complicated. Like everyone, I'm looking forward to COVID to be done so we can go back to life the way it used to be!

After all that, I am still happy about our move and incredibly excited to have our dancers back in class! I've missed everyone so much and my heart is happy knowing that next week I'll be back in the studio with most of our dancers - and dancing virtually with others. I'm sad that I have to postpone the Open House, but if I want to feel sane and ready for our dancers on Monday, I need those couple of days to finish and maybe even relax a little!