tap dancers in jeans on stage with a red background

Once again, I had the honor and the pleasure of working with Greenpoint, Brooklyn based Hamilton Dance Studio. This year marked their 30th Anniversary as a dance school, which I have to say is quite impressive for any business, much less a dance school. Hamilton Dance had decided to make this a special event, and invited some of their alumni to dance on stage during the first routine.

Hamilton Dance Studio’s proprietor is Rita Hamilton, who comes from a family of dance (her father owned Jimmy Hamilton’s Dance Corner in Philadelphia), is a true class act and a great leader. She loves what she does, loves her students, and gets teary-eyed at the end of every school season that ends with the recital in June.

I’ve been working with Hamilton Dance now for over three years. I started as their Social Media manager, and now also do all of their recital, website and social media photography. Even for me, after three years, and recognizing some of the students who come back year after year, I see how much love and energy gets put into every lesson, every rehearsal. There’s no way I would ever do a mediocre job for Hamilton Dance. For the recital, I first go to the dress rehearsal, make some images to make sure my exposure strategy is correct, and also make notes on which lens for which routine, where I’ll stand to shoot it, and what highlights I want to capture. I’ll also get some documentary shots of the dress rehearsal as well. This year, I’ve also started doing some video at the rehearsal as well. Video is very popular on social media right now, and its good to get it when I can, without detracting from my photography.

One of the words that I keep hearing around Hamilton Dance is “family”, and in many ways that is true, both in reality and as a figure of speech. The studio’s manager and her daughter both work at studio, and every recital they hand out awards for students that have been there, 7,8,9,10…15…even 20 years! I would like to think no one stays anywhere voluntarily for 20 years, without deliberately wanting to. To paraphrase a saying from the business world: “Nobody quits a bad school, they quit a bad teacher.” I don’t think there are any bad teachers at Hamilton Dance.

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