Kroc Dance Academy brings the joy of dance to all

BY HILLARY JACKSON

It’s a Friday night at the Kroc Dance Academy (KDA) in Kapolei, Hawaii. A sea of ballerinas dressed in black and lavender leotards groan as instructor and founder Alecia Hardt announces the next part of their practice, allegro— fast.

“It’s a Friday night brain teaser,” Artistic Director Sadi Richard said as the dancers move across the room in groups at The Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center. For many, they’ve practiced between 12-20 hours this week. They’re tired, but determined. They’ve worked hard to reach the upper levels of KDA, Hardt said.

And the effort speaks for itself. The dancers have won countless awards, and Hardt said some have been admitted into elite ballet intensives in places including Joffrey Ballet in Italy, as well as others in New York and Chicago.

While those kinds of successes are part of what Hardt aims for, she’s quick to point out the character of her students, calling them humble, smart and kind. It’s in that spirit Hardt and the rest of the teachers at KDA aim to develop dancers of all abilities and help them reach their potential.

While the Kroc Center has been a fixture of the Kapolei community for 10 years, KDA is a relative newcomer, having moved to the Kroc Center in January 2019.

Prior to that time, Hardt and KDA instructor Carolyn Nixon were teaching 44 kids out of a storage unit because the studio they had been instructing at shuttered. After several months of dancing in the heat, a parent asked if they had ever considered the Kroc Center.

Hardt met with the then-Corps Officers, Lt. Colonels Debbie and Phil Lum, who are now the Territorial Secretary for Program and Assistant Program Secretary for Corps Ministries, respectively, as well as Kroc and Workforce Develop- ment Director Steve Bireley, who helped green light the program’s move to the Kroc Center in January 2019. Hardt said from the storage unit, the program grew to more than 150 kids within its first seven months at the Kroc Center, prior to the pandemic.

“Our family, our ohana, are unlike any other that I’ve ever worked with in my 40 years of dance. And they needed a special place,” Hardt said. “Kroc Center offered all of professionalism, and I was able to show them what we could do in terms of technical programs, in terms of being a solid foundation for kids to grow, and also what it meant to be ohana to us and how we treat our students differently…We accommodate things that typically the dance industry does not accommodate.”

That means people of all ages and abilities are encouraged to participate. In the Friday night class, the program’s

—ALECIA HARDT

oldest dancer, 47, participates alongside her daughter. Throughout the levels, Hardt and teachers include dancers with disabilities—and help them thrive.

“We have to not just accommodate kids, but be proactive about helping them develop,” Hardt said. “We’re going to tailor classes so that kids succeed. And depending on the diagnosis the kid has, there are a million different ways you’ve got to do that. But my ballet department will always accommodate and help kids succeed.”

For Hardt, the effort is personal. As a mother to a one of KDA’s highest level dancers who has autism, she knows how challenging it can be for parents to find a studio that will accommodate their children with disabilities.

“I’ve spent 14 years with my own child, working with behaviorists and sign language and a lot of neurologists on movement disorders, and so we’re sort