Harford County Dance Studio to Occupy Former Klein’s General Store in January 2019
The Dance Conservatory of Maryland (DCM) is pleased to announce it will be relocating to the 6,500 square foot building that once housed Klein’s General Store in Forest Hill located at 2331 Rock Spring Road to accommodate continuing growth and an increasing number of aspiring dancers.
The Dance Conservatory of Maryland has been training dancers in Harford County, Maryland since it was founded in 1996. Over the years, DCM has grown into a school that embraces all dance disciplines and offers classes in all styles of dance with a pre-professional ballet program of the highest quality. This growth rate quickly outpaced the organization’s current facilities in Fallston, Maryland.
“Our program has grown from 75 students nine years ago, to now just under 300,” says Kaitlin Weber, managing director of Dance Conservatory of Maryland and executive director of Ballet Chesapeake. “We just outgrew our space ten-fold,” she adds. “In fact, we had to turn away close to 40 potential students for our Fall classes last year, simply because there was nowhere to physically fit them!”
The new building, just twelve minutes north west from DCM’s current location in Fallston, will feature more than 6,500 square feet of space including offices, lobby/waiting areas, dressing rooms, The Boutique at DCM, as well as four brand new dance studios equipped with sprung flooring that are larger than its current studios. The new location will also feature a paved parking lot so that parents can park and wait for their children or safely drop students off. DCM will continue to be the headquarters for Ballet Chesapeake, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization overseen by an advisory Board of Directors who work with DCM’s artistic director and executive director to provide administrative support for the Company.
“This new space will allow us to serve at least 400 students, if not more,” says Barclay Gibbs, owner and artistic director of Dance Conservatory Maryland. “Our new studios and facilities will be perfect for our organization and will reflect the high-quality dance education offered by the Dance Conservatory for more than 20 years!”
The new location is scheduled to open to the public on Monday, January 7, 2019. Until the space is completed, operations will continue out of the Fallston location. The organization is seeking volunteers throughout the Fall to help install floors, barres and mirrors in the new space. For more information, or to volunteer, please contact Kaitlin Weber, at 410-877-0777 or [email protected].
###
About Dance Conservatory of Maryland
Now under the new ownership of Barclay Gibbs, the Dance Conservatory of Maryland is the premier classical and contemporary dance program in Harford County and the Northern Maryland region. Headquartered at the 40-acre historic Millstad property on Whitaker Mill Road, three miles south of Bel Air, the 5,000-square foot facility houses the conservatory as well as the headquarters for Ballet Chesapeake. A DCM dancer can perform professionally, earn scholarships to major professional schools, colleges and universities, and enrich the artistic and cultural life of the community.
