Inspirations Dance Studio

Website: inspirationsdancespokane.com
Budget Size: 100 to 250K
Region: Northeast
County: Spokane
Artistic Focus Area: Dance
Community Accelerator Grant Award: $25,000 in 2024
Primary Impact Category: Reopening

Mission Statement: Our mission is to create an inclusive and supportive environment where children, and adults of all abilities, backgrounds, and financial circumstances have the opportunity to experience the joy of dance. Through our non-profit dance studio, we strive to empower children and adults with special needs and those from low-income families by providing access to high-quality dance instruction, nurturing their creativity, fostering self-expression, and promoting physical and emotional well-being. We believe that everyone deserves the chance to shine, and we are committed to breaking down barriers and enriching lives through the transformative power of dance.

It all started with a Groupon. In 2014, Marlina D’Angelo was looking for dance classes for her eleven-year-old daughter, Josie, and saw a discounted rate at a brand-new nonprofit studio interested in creating opportunities for dancers with disabilities. While Josie didn’t have a disability that the family knew of (she was later diagnosed with dyslexia), Marlina was intrigued by the group’s mission. “I loved the idea of her getting to be involved with a community like that,” she told ArtsFund. Josie became one of the studio’s first five pupils.

Founded by mother-and-daughter team Janet and Mikaela Ostrander, Inspirations Dance is dedicated to providing dance education for people of all ages, financial backgrounds, and abilities. Their students range in age from 3 years old to seniors, and approximately 70% are on the autism spectrum or have other special needs. They offer classes in ballet, tap, lyrical, modern, hip-hop, swing, and jazz, as well as “Love To Dance” classes specifically for special needs students, which cover all styles. Some students have come to Inspirations Dance after feeling unwelcome at other studios. Many have come seeking a creative outlet, a physical activity, or the rigor and discipline of a classroom environment – and their families have come seeking community. One of the most meaningful renovations the company has made, Marlina says, was to its waiting area, turning it from a cramped hallway into a comfortable gathering space. “Parents and families of special needs students in Spokane don’t have a lot of extra support, and updating that space has let them be there for each other, bounce ideas off each other. Now they have barbeques, family activities, all this community, and it’s all based off just coming to dance.”

Over the years, as Inspirations Dance grew, Marlina became more and more involved, joining the board and picking up HR and accounting duties. By 2019, she was serving as the studio’s Co-Director and overseeing a thriving organization with 170 students. COVID-19 hit Spokane’s dance community hard – three local studios shut down, and Inspirations Dance lost over 80% of its student body. They were struggling to make rent payments and meet overhead costs, and had begun serious discussions about what would happen if they had to close their doors. Josie, who had continued dancing throughout her teenage years, offered to volunteer as a dance instructor to help keep the studio afloat – an act of selflessness that still makes Marlina emotional. “She was 11 years old when she started, and she saw the impact that it had back then. She was dancing alongside students with Down Syndrome and was able to see the involvement, the passion, what it meant to them. It was huge for her. She wasn’t willing to let it go.”

As they prepare for their 2024 Fall Session, Inspirations Dance has not fully recovered from the pandemic, but they’re well on their way. Their student body is up to 83, 50% of their pre-COVID enrollment, and they’re offering 17 classes a week, up from 8 classes a week last September. Marlina finally found enough time and capacity this year to start looking for external funding sources, and the Community Accelerator Grant was the first one to come across her desk. She is grateful that the application process was so approachable to a first-time grant writer and feels more confident about continuing to seek grants. Their funding went towards Inspirations Dance’s first ever Summer Session, keeping the studio’s doors open through the summer and offering students much-needed opportunities for structure, activity, and empowerment while schools were closed. Funds supported not only facility and air conditioning costs, but 5 full scholarships for the summer (and ten for the fall). Much of their remaining funding is going towards advertising their recent state certification as a movement therapy provider to local neurology departments, rehabilitation clinics, and orthopedic centers, outreach that they hope will bring in more prospective dancers.

The last of their funding is earmarked for sending Josie, who officially joined the studio’s staff in 2023, to Seattle this fall for additional dance teacher training. While Marlina is supportive of whatever path Josie might choose to follow, she sees a future in which the studio that has become such a big part of both of their lives is in her daughter’s hands – as she puts it, “Her heart is just here.”