TYSOD Family Zooms into its 42nd Season
In-studio training various ballet, silks, prior to mid-march 2020 – Abigail Photos and Cass Lievsay
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n mid-March, as the state’s restaurants, schools, salons and performance venues shuttered their operations, Tolbert Yilmaz School of Dance was forced to do the same. The once bustling lobby, empty. The piano, silent. Realizing the school might be closed for an extended period, Artistic Director and Founder, Nancy Tolbert Yilmaz, set out to find a solution, and do it quickly. By the end of the month, the Roswellbased dance school had reinvented its business model and pivoted to virtual classes. With the spring productions of Cinderella and Straight From the Heart cancelled, the focus was on continued training. The studio — that during normal operations sees more than 350 dancers a day — now runs entirely online. TYSOD’s 25-member faculty are teaching more than 50 classes per week using Zoom. “We wanted a platform to share only with our registered students to keep them safe”, said Yilmaz. “We needed to stay connected. Not only did we want to keep some normalcy for our kids, but also keep them Zoom & Home Photos: engaged
TYSOD Staff and students
and growing as dancers. The live online classes give them that opportunity.” In addition to Zoom class offerings, TYSOD added a wide range of prerecorded offerings to their web site, including classes in conditioning, videos of past performances, and even activity sheets for its youngest dancers. As the state begins to open up, TYSOD is offering Zoom classes and select instudio classes that are appropriately socially distanced. Looking ahead to the fall, when the TYSOD family does return home, they will do it in style. Their new, 24,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility, located at the corner of Houze Road and Houze Way in Roswell, is scheduled to welcome students in September. Faculty, dancers, and staff will enjoy spacious, custom-built studios with sprung floors, an in-house costume shop, a physical therapy suite and even a rooftop lounge! TYSOD and Roswell Dance Theatre look forward to creating more art in this beautiful facility to share with and uplift our community in the months ahead. For more information about our training and upcoming productions, or to join our TYSOD family, please visit www.tysod.com.
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