On their toes: Ballet Academy of Moses Lake owners share passion for dance

MOSES LAKE — On the corner of South Beech Street and Third Avenue in Moses Lake, one can typically find toes tapping and dancers twirling inside the studio at The Ballet Academy of Moses Lake.

Co-owners Lacey Schindler and Rian Miles have been running The Ballet Academy and High Velocity Dance Company since about 2013. Since taking over, the dance studio has continued to grow and develop beyond just ballet lessons to offering classes in a variety of dance styles.

Lacey Schindler grew up dancing locally in Moses Lake, training at the Broadway School of the Arts with JoAnn Rashford. While still training as a dancer, Robin Wenrich opened The Ballet Academy of Moses Lake in the late 1990s, where Schindler trained for about six years.

Schindler set off to begin her professional dance career she had planned, working with a variety of companies including the Inland Pacific Ballet. After deciding the politics and other factors in the life of a professional dancer weren’t for her, she moved back home and got married.

When Robin Wenrich moved away from Moses Lake, she asked Schindler if she’d be interested in taking over.

“I said ‘Heck no,’ I knew nothing about running a business,” Schindler said.

After the next owner of the studio stepped down after a few years, Schindler decided to take the helm at the ballet academy in 2007.

Rian Miles grew up dancing on the west side of the state, training in a variety of dance styles. It just so happened that one of Miles’ former classmates at a dance studio near Tacoma had a daughter who’d enrolled with Schindler at The Ballet Academy of Moses Lake.

Miles, who was working with dance companies across the country, came over to work with her former classmates’ daughter for a solo performance and wound up teaching master classes once a month at the studio in town. Schindler kept in touch with Miles even after she left to perform with a dance troupe in New York City for the summer in 2013.

“At the time, it wasn’t what Rian was looking for,” Schindler said. “I told her if you come back I’ll offer you half of the business. She said ‘For how much?’ I told her ‘For nothing,’ and to just come and build the other half of the business.”

Miles decided to make the move and within a matter of weeks was opening registration for her first set of classes. Schindler focuses more on the ballet classes while Miles focuses more on the lyrical, jazz and tap courses.

Early on, the pair said they tried to overcome some of the “small town mentality” and help the community see the potential the studio has for local dancers.

Schindler said it was tough at first to get parents on board, with kids coming in to dance at 7 or 8 p.m. Miles said it was a challenge sharing the mindset she’d seen working with multi-million dollar dance companies touring the country.

“It’s hard for them to wrap their head around that this is a thing and realizing that this could be something good for your child,” Miles said. “It does cost money, it does involve a lot of focus, parental involvement and time and effort and energy.”

Early on, Schindler said the academy was sort of a “hidden gem” people only knew about if they sought them out. The studio was originally near the industrial park on Wheeler Road before moving to the current, more central, location across from the post office in Moses Lake. With the name The Ballet Academy of Moses Lake, she said it has taken some time for people to see the studio offers more than just ballet.

The studio offers a variety of dance classes from ballet to lyrical, jazz, hip-hop and tap at a variety of different skill levels. Classes start as young as 3 years old all the way up to advanced level classes and competition teams in high school age groups.

Miles said the number of classes a student will take depends on their level, with elite dance team members enrolled in about 12 classes per week.

“Most of the older kids, they get out of school and they come here and they’re here until 7, 8 o’clock at night,” Schindler said.

The High Velocity Dance Company is a competitive dance team offered through the ballet studio featuring a blend of technical ballet and contemporary jazz and lyrical styles. The dance teams compete in competitions across Washington and the Pacific Northwest and try to attend a national level competition every other year.

In addition to competitions, the academy puts on a few performances each year. Every other year, the studio does a holiday performance of “The Nutcracker” in addition to ballet and jazz productions in the spring. Late spring and summer are typically dedicated to competitions. After last year’s production of “The Nutcracker” was canceled due to the pandemic, Schindler said the studio is excited for this winter’s performance.

The studio was forced to go to virtual lessons and Zoom recordings after the pandemic hit last spring. Schindler said the studio reopened around September with social distancing and face mask protocols in place. She said she felt like people were dying to get back in the studio.

The pair said each year can be scary not knowing how many students they’ll have coming back in the fall. Coming out of the pandemic, they said they’ve had a lot of messages and interest from potential parents and students, with the first round of registration set for Thursday from 4-6 p.m.

“This year, I just feel like everyone has waited a little bit longer,” Schindler said. “Usually by this time, we have registrations being mailed in, but now it’s just like this wave of interest. It’s been interesting, especially with the younger ones.”

Both Miles and Schindler said they’re ready to get back into a normal swing of things this year and are “ready to crush this next year.”

With Today’s Generation Dance Studio and Dance FX, there are a number of options for dance students in Moses Lake. Schindler said there haven’t been any issues between the different dance studios competing with one another and everyone seems to work well together.

She added some of their ballet students will take clogging or tumbling classes with Toby Black at Dance FX and it’s nice to have that tradeoff possible.

Making the transition from pursuing professional dance careers to preparing young dancers has been an adjustment for both Miles and Schindler. Schindler said it was hard for her at first and she had no interest initially in running her own school.

“I remember I was in a dance company class and I was so upset with the director because she hadn’t given me any corrections,” Schindler said. “I felt like I was being ignored. I was watching another dancer and in my mind, I was helping her try to fix things, critiquing things, and it dawned on me. I’m doing the wrong thing.”

That’s how she came to terms with being meant for teaching, she said. Being in Moses Lake with the experience and knowledge she’d gained, Schindler said she felt like she could teach these small town kids how to make it in the bigger markets.

Going from being the one on stage to behind the curtains was a challenge, too, but she said it took some of the pressure off. Being behind the curtains is a different type of pressure, but is very fulfilling.

Miles said helping these small town dancers train so they’re not afraid of stepping on the bigger stages in Seattle or New York City has been one of her focuses as an instructor. She said she wants to have the dancers prepared and know “this is what you need in your back pocket” if they want to dance professionally.

“The biggest part is being a positive role model for these kids, not just in dance,” Miles said. “There’s so many kids these days that don’t have that. To be that light for anyone in the community, to say you can do this, you can have a good life even if it’s not through dance.”