Joy of Motion Dance Center

🩵We are so proud of and grateful for this team! Serving over 1,113 students this term with confidence, professionalism and dedication, there’s none like it!

Help us congratulate our team’s accomplishments!

🏅Rising Star, Ms. Shanice! (youth)
🏅Team Player, Ms. Robyn! (youth)
🏅Rookie of the Year, Ms. Princess! (youth)
🏅Faculty of the Year, Ms. Taylor! (youth)
🏅Most Valuable Person, Ms. Mahaylia! (youth)

🏅Top Innovator, Franki! (adult)
🏅Rising Social Media Star, Louisa! (adult)
🏅Most Consistent, Tamara! (adult)
🏅Rookie of the Year, Brigit! (adult)
🏅Excellence In Instruction, Princess Johari (adult)
🏅Most Valuable Person, Taylor! (adult)

🏅Best In Customer Service, Chris! (staff)
🏅Employee of the Year, Jalen! (staff)

Thank you for an incredible term and for ensuring that Dance is for Everyone! 🩵

⭐️Congratulations to our youth students who have officially completed their 18 weeks of dance and musical theater classes! It has been a JOY watching our students grow in technical and performance skills. Our term ended with our annual Winter Celebration, where each student got to present the dance history they learned, the skills they acquired, and a show stopping performance they’ve been rehearsing!

🌨️This year our theme was, “Dancing through the storm, to victory!” & every class encouraged us to do just that! Congratulations students, we’re so proud of you!

💛Thank you to our dedicated families,our supportive community, our hardworking staff and most importantly our outstanding teaching faculty who helped make this term an everlasting one!

⚠️If you’d like to donate to help keep our programming running this spring, please visit the link in our bio. If you’d like to join our advisory committee to assist in planning and preparing Joy of Motion’s future, please email us for more information!

🩰 Ballet is for everyone! Join us for class with the incredible Louisa! Our Ballet (beg) class is perfect for new dancers, dancers returning to ballet and active dancers and athletes who are working on strengthening and conditioning!

🦢There are two more opportunities to take class this year! Ballet (beg) meets on Monday nights at 7:30PM. Check out the schedule below and register today!

🗓️ Monday, December 22ND
🕢 7:30PM
🦢 Louisa Mejeur Chapman

🗓️ Monday, December 29TH
🕢 7:30PM
🦢 Louisa Mejeur Chapman

🔗 Registration is required and the link to register is in our bio!

LET’S DANCE! There’s 2 more opportunities to catch our Ballet (Beg) and Heels Performance (Beg) classes before we say goodbye!

We love you DC, join us for our last dances with our beloved faculty! Check out the schedule for ballet and heels performance below and register today! You don’t want to miss your last chance, to dance!

🗓️ DECEMBER 22, 2025
🕢 7:30PM
🩰 Ballet (beg)
✨ LOUISA Mejeur Chapman

🗓️ DECEMBER 23, 2025
🕡 6:30PM
👠 Heels Performance(beg)
✨ FRANKI Whitney

🗓️ DECEMBER 29, 2025
🕢 7:30PM
🩰 Ballet (beg)
✨ LOUISA Mejeur Chapman

🗓️ DECEMBER 30, 2025
🕡 6:30PM
👠 Heels Performance(beg)
✨ FRANKI Whitney

🔗 Registration is required and the link to register is in our bio!

For 49 years, Joy of Motion Dance Center has been a place where dance is for everyone. From tiny tots to professional dancers to our stunning seniors and everyone in between, Joy of Motion became a hub for artistic expression, creativity, and personal growth for people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities.

Post-pandemic, Joy reopened in 2022 and we are proud of our students, instructors, community, and staff for bringing a fantastic and ever-growing slate of programming to life!

However, the challenges of these past years compounded by the recent and rapid depletion of both public and private grant funds have become insurmountable. The leadership has worked to secure additional funds, but the cost of retaining a brick and mortar space as the sole lessee is no longer possible for Joy of Motion and the studio will relinquish its lease on Dec. 31st.

Youth programming will continue in January until Jan. 24th at ATLAS PAC, while adult programming will conclude on Dec. 31st.

While we are incredibly sad to share this news, we know that all arts organizations must adjust, adapt and recalibrate within these difficult times. We remain hopeful that we can restart Joy of Motion programming through Atlas Performing Art Center in the new year. While Joy of Motion will not have a space that is solely ours, the mission remains the same. No matter what physical space we are in, all Joy of Motion classes, workshops, and performances will always be a space where dance is for everyone.

We are eternally grateful to our community, our partners at Atlas Performing Arts Center, and anyone who has supported and continued to support Joy of Motion and the arts in DC. Our students, parents, neighbors, and friends have helped to cultivate the dance home that was envisioned by our founder Michelle Ava. Dance belongs to us all, and we all belong in a space where we can grow, learn, move and create. And we look forward to meeting you back in that space soon.

We appreciate your patience and support more than you know and are thankful for our dance family.

With Joy,
The Board of Directors 🩵