The Benefits of Having a Dance Studio in Your Home – and How to Build One
By Lillian Brooks
Dance can be a fun and often magical pursuit, especially for kids who are just coming into their own. It’s a great way for your little ones to get their much-needed physical activity on the regular, plus it teaches them confidence and encourages discipline — and that’s barely scratching the surface. For this reason, your very own dance room can be a valuable addition to your home (think: resale value). Best of all, it’s a functional space that can also be used for working out, making music, and even just playing with the family. So, without further ado, let us follow Sherwood Dance Academy as they take us on a deep dive into such a promising home improvement project.
Undeniable Benefits
Dance is more than just about entertainment; its benefits cut so much deeper than that, particularly for growing children. By extension, an at-home dance room will also benefit your home in the most remarkable and maybe even unexpected ways.
Whether it’s classical ballet or contemporary disciplines like jazz, there’s no question that dance can enrich a child’s development in many ways.
It’s a happy and joyful way for them to exercise. Besides the obvious cardio and muscle development benefits, dance helps to increase a child’s sense of balance, agility, flexibility and coordination. When you add the fact that they’re doing all of this to various forms and styles of music, you get a real two-for-one bang for your buck. According to a study posted by Harvard Medical School, synchronizing music and movement constitutes a pleasure double-play for the brain. Music stimulates the brain’s reward center while dance activates its sensory and motor circuits.
It’s a time for kids to unplug from electronic entertainment and release their inner creative selves through movement. This can mean a lot for children who have trouble socializing or difficulty expressing themselves in any other way.
Dancing with your child does a world of good for you, too. You get all the same physical and psychological benefits from dance that your child does, but according to Dance Informa Magazine, dance in adults improves focus and attention, decreases stress by releasing mood enhancing serotonin levels, and even decreases the risk of dementia because of the mental effort and social interactions involved.
If you’re pregnant or nursing, dancing with your older child or teaching other children is an excellent way to stay fit. Just make sure you've got supportive undergarments like activewear bras, so you’ll feel more comfortable as you move.
It goes without saying that a regular, at-home dance practice will support your kids’ dance training in spades.
The DIY Route
There’s no question that a dance studio is a versatile addition to any home. Surprisingly, a space as full of potential as this can be a fairly straightforward and doable DIY project.
Get to know the step-by-step process of building an at-home dance studio.
You’ll need to install essentials like safe and adequate flooring, strong ballet barres. A lot of people go for the newer and more modern look of aluminum for their dance barres, but if you like the more traditional look of wood, poplar is the most cost effective option.
Don’t forget the mirrors to assist your little dancers as they work on their form. Glassless mirrors are an option as they’re more affordable and lightweight and won’t shatter like real glass. Alvas Studio Accessories says,”Conventional mirrors always have that little double-image halo around the performer, where a glassless mirror is more like looking at a high-definition photograph.”
Of course, make sure to clean regularly to keep germs and viruses out, as well as make it a nice place to train in, especially if you’ve got children that are not in your immediate family training in your new studio.
Turning to the Pros
It’s also a good idea to look at the pros to give life to your dance room and/or multipurpose space. In some cases where extensive work needs to be done, this may even be ideal.
It’s always a great idea to hire professional contractors for home remodeling projects.
Remodeling can be costly, so you’ll want to choose your contractor with care.
No doubt, the expense will be worth it, as you’re better able to avoid mistakes and really bring the perfect dance studio to life.
Needless to say, your lives will be all the richer when you welcome music and dance into your home. An at-home dance studio is undoubtedly a fantastic complement to instructed lessons and their benefits, making it the best support you can possibly give to budding little dancers.
