Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel White and Jennifer Hatfield.
Hi Rachel and Jennifer, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
How two sisters took over their hometown dance studio:
Growing up in a small town, finding after school activities was very important. That’s where dance came into our lives. After taking technique and competitive classes for years in all genres, we started training to become dance teachers. Using outside resources, while staying loyal to our hometown, both of us were able to work our way up and advance as educators and choreographers.
First becoming Student Teachers, then Assistants, to eventually being gifted our own classes and becoming coaches of competitive dance teams. Jenny then promoted to Director of the Competition Program, where our dancers travel city to city to compete against other dance studios, further growing their dance community.
As sisters we grew up watching a lot of musicals and obscure dance related things, creating our love of performance. This led us to creating pieces together, which is when we found we work really well as a team, leading to many choreography awards and more. When the opportunity of taking over our childhood studio arrived, we jumped at the chance! This was our time to really make it our own, and continue the legacy the old owner, Kristine Griffin, created.
Our studio really focuses on the love and passion of dance, while creating working dancers, who can have a long career in this field.
We offer many styles from traditional styles like ballet, tap, jazz, and hip hop, while also offering more growing style such as lyrical, contemporary, and acrobatics. We don’t stop there though, our studio offers everything from ASL dancing, mommy and me classes, along with musical theater and more.
RJAD , originally standing for “Ramona/ Julian Academy of Dance” has been around for over 35 years!! As we go into our fifth years as owners, we are proud to say our numbers are going up each year and we are finding our groove a little more with each year, with a lot of never -ending learning to do, as we continue to grow the business. Since most alumni refer to the studio as R-JAD, we simplified the name, while it has a secret nod to our first initial’s, “R” standing for Rachel and “J” for Jenny.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
We went into this knowing it would be a lot of work, and it definitely has been.
Implementing new policies and procedures to our staff and students, while upgrading office equipment and software systems. This has involved a lot of transfer work and learning new ways of running our business. Redesigning the interior to give a more updated look that reflects our personal style.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
It is very common for dance educators to have more than one job/career. Though between the two of us have had many odd jobs through-out the years, we have been fortunate enough to make this our full time career for a while now.
Our studio really specializes is musical theater and performance based skills. This is largely based off the fact that we, ourselves, enjoy going to plays and performances of all kinds.
We have many other interest and enjoy spending time with Family and our Fur Babies.
How do you think about happiness?
Through the years we have been involved in so many children’s lives, and we don’t take that lightly. Getting to be their friend, educator, support system, cheerleader and more has been such an honor over the years. When we see our dancers go on to do great things with their lives, dance related or not, it brings us such joy. You can’t help but know you’re a part of that, big or small, we were a part of that. That’s everything to us and what keeps us coming back to this life style every day.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://RJADdance.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rjaddance/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RJADDANCE/
